When the antiabortion movement meets the antivaccine movement...

Many are the lies and epic is the misinformation spread by the antivaccine movement. For instance, they claim that vaccines cause autism, autoimmune diseases, sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), cancer, and a wide variety of other conditions and diseases when there is no credible evidence that they do and lots of evidence that they don't. One particularly pernicious myth, designed to appeal (if you can call it that) to religious fundamentalists, is the claim that vaccines are made using fetal parts. This particular claim reared its ugly head again in the context of a propaganda campaign against Planned Parenthood that hit the news last week.

Before I get to the "sting" operation against Planned Parenthood, bear with me a moment while I discuss a bit about the background here. It definitely has bearing on the attempt by David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress to "prove" that Planned Parenthood is selling fetal parts for profit. First, you need to realize that fear mongering about "fetal parts" in vaccines is, not surprisingly, a distortion of the real situation, which is that the human cell lines used to make some vaccines. Specifically, the WI-38 cell line is a human diploid fibroblast cell line derived from a three month old fetus aborted therapeutically in 1962 in the US. Another cell line, MRC-5, was derived from lung fibroblasts of a 14 week old fetus in 1966 in the United Kingdom. These are currently the only fetal cell lines used to grow viruses for vaccines, with most other vaccines requiring cell lines using animal cell lines (which, of course, leads antivaccinationists to disparage them as "dirty" and using "monkey cells" and the like). In any case, the only commonly used vaccines in which these cell lines are utilized are:

  • Hepatitis A vaccines [VAQTA/Merck, Havrix/GlaxoSmithKline, and part of Twinrix/GlaxoSmithKline]
  • Rubella vaccine [MERUVAX II/Merck, part of MMR II/Merck, and ProQuad/Merck]
  • Varicella (chickenpox) vaccine [Varivax/Merck, and part of ProQuad/Merck]
  • Zoster (shingles) vaccine [Zostavax/Merck]

Although antiabortion antivaccine activists try to make it sound as though scientists are aborting babies left and right just to grind them up to make vaccines, in reality there are only two cell lines used this way, and they are so far removed from the original abortions that even the Catholic Church has said that it is morally acceptable to use such vaccines, although the statement from the Pontifical Academy for Life does urge scientists to develop vaccines that don't use these cell lines. Basically, the Church concluded that the extreme good of protecting children's lives far outweighed the distant evil (in the Church's view) that created the cell lines, concluding in a FAQ, “There would seem to be no proper grounds for refusing immunization against dangerous contagious disease, for example, rubella, especially in light of the concern that we should all have for the health of our children, public health, and the common good” and “It should be obvious that vaccine use in these cases does not contribute directly to the practice of abortion since the reasons for having an abortion are not related to vaccine preparation.”

A variant of this gambit is to claim that there is fetal DNA in vaccines and that this is the cause of every evil under the sun attributed to vaccines. Perhaps the foremost proponent of this brain dead claim is a woman who really should know better. I'm referring, of course, to Theresa Deisher, of whom I first became aware way back in 2009, when I first learned of her attempts to link fetal DNA in vaccines to autism. It was, as I referred to it at the time, thermonuclear stupid, similar to the claim of Helen Ratajczak that fetal DNA from vaccines somehow would get into brain cells and undergo recombination with the baby's native DNA to result in the production of altered proteins on the cell surface of the brain's cells, thus provoking an autoimmune reaction and—voilà!—autism.

It's an idea that's so implausible that it's worth explaining why again. To do what Dr. Ratajczak and Deisher claim, the minute amount of human DNA in a vaccine from the human fetal cell line used to grow up the virus would have to:

  • Find its way to the brain in significant quantities.
  • Make it into the neurons in the brain in significant quantities.
  • Make it into the nucleus of the neurons in significant quantities.
  • Undergo homologous recombination at a detectable level, resulting in either the alteration of a cell surface protein or the expression of a foreign cell surface protein that the immune system can recognize.
  • Undergo homologous recombination in many neurons in such a way that results in the neurons having cell surface protein(s) altered sufficiently to be recognized as foreign.

In other words, from a strictly scientific point of view, blaming the DNA from “fetal cells” used to make vaccine is pretty darned implausible. True, it’s not, as I’m wont to say, homeopathy-level implausible, but it wouldn’t take all that much to get there. The amazing thing is that Deisher is actually a scientist, with a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Physiology. (Holy doctorate Batman, that's the same as mine! She even once worked for an evil pharmaceutical company, Amgen!) Given that, she really should know better, but she doesn't. She even founded Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute, which is dedicated to combat embryonic stem cell research and "share the research that indicts the use of aborted fetal vaccines as a trigger for the autism epidemic." You get the idea.

I also like to point out that from a strictly physical standpoint this concept that fetal DNA can somehow recombine with infant DNA is pretty ridiculous. Vaccines are injected intramuscularly, and any tiny amount of contaminating DNA that might be present won't go very far. If it goes anywhere into the body, it'll be to the muscle cells nearby, which can take up DNA in a functional form. I like to point out as well that I know this from direct experimental experience. Back when I was a graduate student, one of our projects was to inject plasmid DNA into rat muscle and determine whether we could get reporter gene expression appropriately regulated by the promoter controlling the gene. It worked. Then there's also the not inconsequential matter of the blood-brain barrier, through which DNA doesn't pass easily. Unfortunately, Deisher just doesn't give up, publishing more recent (and equally bad) "studies" trying to "prove" that fetal DNA in vaccines is an evil cause of autism. They've been no better than her earlier studies; indeed, they've been embarrassingly bad.

So it turns out that the antiabortion movement and the antivaccine movement can make not-so-beautiful pseudoscience together, which brings us back to Planned Parenthood. Even though abortion services make up only 3% of Planned Parenthood's activity, with the other 97% of services going for contraception, treatment and tests for sexually transmitted diseases, cancer screenings, and other women’s health services, Planned Parenthood remains a target of the antiabortion movement. So it was that David Daleiden and his Center for Medical Progress have released two heavily edited videos claiming to represent Planned Parenthood officials discussing the "sale" of fetal body parts from abortions. The first video has been deconstructed by many different media outlets and shown to have been deceptively edited to leave out the Planned Parenthood executive repeatedly telling the people doing the sting operation that its clinics want to cover their costs, not make money, when donating fetal tissue from abortions for scientific research. Indeed, as these deconstructions of the distorted presentation of information rolled in, I couldn't help but think that the techniques used by Daleiden sure resembled the deceptive techniques used by the antivaccine movement, and I briefly thought of Deisher.

Then this story appeared over the weekend in The Daily Beast:

Anti-vaxxers couldn’t be happier about the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood’s fetal tissue donation programs. Many in the anti-vaccine movement have long maintained that fetal tissue in vaccines is behind increasing rates of autism, even though vaccines do not contain fetal tissue and rates of autism might not be rising after all.

But the anti-vaccine movement isn’t just piggybacking on David Daleiden’s undercover sting investigation into the women’s health provider. One of its icons tutored him.

Hmmm. One wonders who that icon might be, one does. Well, look no further:

But an interview with Daleiden in the National Catholic Register revealed this crucial detail: “Theresa Deisher helped to prepare [him] for his role as a biomedical representative, teaching him the ins and outs of the field.” Deisher, who did not respond to request for comment, is one of the chief proponents of the debunked theory that fetal DNA in vaccines is linked to autism.

For Daleiden, a man who, as The New York Times noted “only reluctantly talk[s] about himself,” the link to Deisher is one more clue about his background and the origins of his investigation. Daleiden has already been linked to a retinue of far-right activists—including the militant pro-life group Operation Rescue, which is partially funding the CMP—but his training under a noted vaccine skeptic has not yet been brought to light.

Until now. This is how Deisher is described in the National Catholic Register:

As her respect for the unborn grew, so did her intolerance for working in a field where experimenting on material from aborted babies is rampant. She is now the president of Sound Choice Pharmaceutical Institute and CEO of AVM Biotechnology; both companies have a mission to end the use of aborted babies in biomedical research.

In the same article, she claims that we're "taking a baby and chopping it up to make vaccines," which, as I described at the beginning of this article scientists most certainly do not do. Let's just put it this way. Deisher's "research" is so sloppy that even those who share her implacable opposition to abortion can't support it, pointing out, quite correctly:

However, deeply held beliefs do not make for rigorous scientific inquiry. And pro-life parents seeking to do the best by their children and by their culture deserve better than to have a plausible sounding lie masquerading as truth.

Of course, I can't help but point out that the lie here is only plausible sounding if you don't have a background in molecular biology. Even a freshman-level introduction to molecular biology provides more than enough knowledge to know why Theresa Deisher's idea of how fetal DNA in vaccines can cause autism (I won't even dignify it by calling it a hypothesis) is an enormous pile of wet, stinky BS. Even if you do believe abortion is a great evil, is it not also evil to misuse your scientific knowledge and credentials to spread a lie, such as the lie that fetal DNA in vaccines causes autism. Yet that lie is exactly the one that Deisher has been spreading for at least seven years. So willing is she to spread it that she got into bed with activists willing to represent themselves as being part of a fake company (Biomax Procurement Services) to try to induce Planned Parenthood into illegally selling fetal body parts.

The confluence of fundamentalist religion that believes abortion to be the same as murder with the antivaccine movement might surprise those who don't pay the intense attention to both of them that I and other skeptics do. It shouldn't. There has long been a wing of the antivaccine movement that uses the existence and use of the WI-38 and MRC-5 cell lines as reason to attack vaccination. Theresa Deisher is particularly dangerous because she used to be a real scientist until her embrace of an unholy union of antiabortion and antivaccine pseudoscience led her to produce a seemingly "scientific" rationale for not vaccinating that tapped into the opposition to abortion shared by Catholicism and various fundamentalist religions. Her willingness to coach a con man like David Daleiden shows just how far she will go in the service of her now anti-science agenda. She also serves as a useful reminder that antivaccine pseudoscience is the pseudoscience that knows no political boundaries. For every hippy dippy all "natural"-type antivaccine activist, there's a right-wing fundamentalist like David Daleiden, who could do real damage to the vaccine program when backed by someone like Theresa Deisher.

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The fertilized oocyte possesses the property of naturally growing to be what is commonly RECOGNIZED as a human being, a person. “Recognized”, as in acknowledged, in terms of APPEARANCE, by everyone, even by little children.

When most fertilized eggs "self-abort", the possession of such properly is not necessarily absolute.

And that is a argument from potential.

Some here are protesting my claim that they believe abortion should be allowed in all cases.

They say I misunderstand or mangle or ignore some specifics they say they’ve given for when they think abortion SHOULD be forbidden.

Perhaps their protests are well-founded. But instead of trying find out by rehashing what has, or may have, been said on the issue to this point, let’s start fresh.

Your utter and abject failure to have a backbone or a modicum of honesty is duly noted.

See Noevo, August 10, 2015, #990:

I can say, in all honesty, that is false.

After our discussion, some weeks ago, about Mental Reservation, it seems likely that: yes, you can say something in all honesty, but no-one can trust you to do so, especially when your church can be seen as benefiting from your dissembling.

To those who missed it: Mental Reservation is an RCC instruction (maybe a Doctrine) that approves (or requires) a churchmouse like SN to lie if the lie benefits the church. Consequently, it is unwise to trust a devout catlick in any matter in which the RCC may have an interest. That's why the oath of office for US military officers calls it out, explicitly, along with "purpose of evasion."

By Bill Price (not verified) on 10 Aug 2015 #permalink

But instead of trying find out by rehashing what has, or may have, been said on the issue to this point, let’s start fresh.

Pitiful, just pitiful.

SN's latest folderol:

A perfectly normal pregnancy about 25 weeks along, no physical problems or abnormalities with mother or baby, no mental/psychological/psychiatric problems with the mother, according to the appropriate medical professionals. Everything about the pregnancy is proceeding normally.

But the mother wants an abortion, and does not want to be denied the abortion.

You have not, in your hypothesis, eliminated coercion as a factor. Thus, I would have to interview the patient (personally or by delegation) to determine whether the consent is actual. If in the process of that determination, I were to find the patient to be a refugee from an abusive male, (possibly father, boyfriend, or husband; probably fundy Paulist, strict catholic, mormon, muslim, or orthodox jewish, etc.) I would approve the procedure and give it extra priority, for the patient's safety.

Hypothetically, assuming YOU[sic] had the power, would YOU[sic] forbid the abortion?

I might, by hypothesis, have the power, but I would not have the moral authority to override the uncoerced wishes of the only affected person. Being a moral person myself, I could not forbid the procedure unless coercion causes actual consent to be absent.

On what basis would you forbid or not forbid?

Again, lack of moral authority to override the expressed, uncoerced wishes of the only person affected. IOW, it would be immoral to forbid the hypothesized procedure.
-------------------------------------------------------------
By your hypothesis, terminating the pregnancy would convert the fetus into a borderline viable preemy. Being borderline viable means the baby has a significantly low probability of survival to personhood. The survival time required before the preemy could be considered a person, in this case, is fuzzier than that for a full-term birth.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 10 Aug 2015 #permalink

And your support for THIS incomprehensible mishmash about the Catholic Church is what?

See #833.

And is the “living” adult like a “So-and-so is living proof that…” etc.?

No.

As I explained @#985, #967, and #954:

Your all-too-evident belief that the dictionary is telling you that the words "a living adult or juvenile individual of the species homo sapiens" can be construed to mean "an adult or juvenile individual having the form of a person of the species of human beings that exist today" is based on a very profound misapprehension about how words are defined and used, apparently arising from your religious convictions.

Sorry:

“an adult or juvenile individual having the form of a person who is alive of the species of human beings that exist today”

^^The dictionary does not justify that reading any more than it would taking the words "You scared the living daylights out of me" to mean "You scared the daylights having the form of a person who is alive out of me."

It's a somewhat awkwardly phrased definition. They really mean "being the live embodiment of" as in "You're the living image of your great-grandmother."

By “bilaterally” synchronous, do you mean synchronous between the two sides of the brain?

Who didn't see that non-gotcha coming?

You cut off "such as described in Anand et al, New England Journal of Medicine, Volume 317, Number 21: Pages 1321-1329, 19 November 1987."

But that doesn't mean it's not there, or that the description isn't of bilaterally synchronous and sustained prenatal brain waves, and not the brain waves of a six-year-old who has had a hemispherectomy.

The fertilized oocyte possesses the property of naturally growing to be what is commonly RECOGNIZED as a human being, a person. “Recognized”, as in acknowledged, in terms of APPEARANCE, by everyone, even by little children.

The dictionary is not saying that having the form of a person who is alive = being a living person. It's just giving the definition for a common rhetorical usage of the word "living."

I must have said this at least once or twice already but I’ll say it again:
The product of conception does NOT have a POTENTIAL for growth;
It IS NOW GROWING, it is already exercising its natural POWER of growth;
Such growth leads naturally to changes in the organism which in no way alter the essence of the organism (e.g. “Steve” growing from 1-foot tall to 6-feet tall or becoming sexually mature is still “Steve”, before and after.) Such changes are merely “accidents”, in philosophic terms, “characteristics”, in more common parlance.

And it's been pointed out to you once or twice already that unless the property that defines human beings is that they are growing, that's either an argument from potential or it's not so much a logical argument as it is just you saying "argle bargle argle bargle, therefore zygotes already are human beings."

Put another way:

If the proposition you're trying to prove logically true is that a growing cell with the natural power to grow into a recognizable human being already is one, you can't do it by arguing that a growing cell with the natural power to grow into a recognizable human being already is one.

No credible reason in, for example, #820?

I see no credible reason offered @820, See. What credible reason do you believe you offered in that post?

Don’t you at least think society has a moral obligation to conclude that a human oocyte, sygote, embryo and/or fetus could NOT POSSIBLY be a human being BEFORE society allows them to be killed?

First: I don’t believe that societies have any moral obligations: they have ethical ones, certainly, but not moral ones.

And as I’m aware of no reason why we must a priori presume the rights of an oocyte, zygote, embryo or fetus take precedence over the rights of the woman carrying it, I believe that even if we do know that a fetus has developed sufficiently to represent a human being that woman still possesses the right to choose whether to continue the pregnancy to term or to terminate it.

But, say, at any time in recorded history, have germ cells from a member of the species homo sapiens given rise to a new individual member of the species homo sapiens?

Sigh. You don’t know what a germ cell is, do you See? One more example of why you lack the ability to take part in this discussion in any substantive manner.

By “bilaterally” synchronous, do you mean synchronous between the two sides of the brain?

Read the Anand et al cite I provided, See. (I will note that I left out a third minimal criteria—that the neural activity observed originate in the cortex.)

The fertilized oocyte possesses the property of naturally growing to be what is commonly RECOGNIZED as a human being, a person… I am NOT saying: “possesses the property to ‘grow to BECOME a human being’”. I AM saying: possesses the property to grow to be what is commonly RECOGNIZED as a human being, a person.

So you’re argument has become that the ability to grow is not the property that demonstrates an oocyte is a human being but instead is simply the property that will at a later date make it possible for us to all-caps RECOGNIZE it as a human being?

That runs us right back to the original question: since growth isn't the property that requires we consider it to be a human being, what property is it instead that requires we consider an oocyte to be a human being rather than a human cell?

So, even though you think it could, even though you’re not sure, you’re sure we can ethically kill it?

Yes. In some circumstances that's pretty much self-evident, such as when electing not to terminate a pregnancy would lead to the death of the fetus upon or shortly after delivery, the death of the fetus and/or the woman carrying it, or to serious injury (physical or mental) to the woman carrying it.

And more generally, with respect to your example

A perfectly normal pregnancy about 25 weeks along, no physical problems or abnormalities with mother or baby, no mental/psychological/psychiatric problems with the mother, according to the appropriate medical professionals. Everything about the pregnancy is proceeding normally. But the mother wants an abortion, and does not want to be denied the abortion.

given that I’m not aware of any argument which requires we conclude a fetus’s presumptive rights must take precedence over a woman’s right to control her own reproductive health and decide if and when to bring a pregnancy to term, I believe that the woman described in your example may still ethically elect to terminate the pregnancy.

Suppose you woke up one morning and found that someone had started a blood transfusion (using amazingly portable equipment). That person cannot be taken off the transfusion for even a moment, or s/he will die. S/he will be using your blood for about 7 months, assuming s/he lives the entire period. Once s/he no longer needs your blood, s/he will need full time care for several years and financial support for 18 years. After that, s/he will never write and leave you in the dark to suffer.

Why should the law demand you support this freeloader?

By Mephistopheles… (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

Why should the law demand you support this freeloader?

But obviously when a lady gets pregnant it is a totally different situation, because she did sex with her lady parts, and eeew, originally sinful lady parts, naughty naughty. Everyone knows a woman gives up the right to her own uterus and her self-determination the moment she opens her legs. Duh.

To Bill Price #982:

“It appears that SN has led the conversation off into neverneverland by causing you to focus on the biological issue ‘human being’, rather than on the moral and legal issue, ‘person’… The point is that ‘person’ is the word used in, for example, the 14th Amendment to identify the entity entitled to equal protection under the law, and in most other contexts of interest here, legal, moral, and ethical… I would suggest redirecting the focus back to where it belongs, on the person rather than the bare organism.”

It seems to me the 14th Amendment is focusing on defining “citizen”, not defining “person.”

For example, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

The fourteenth amendment defines neither 'person' nor 'citizen', See: it states that all persons (undefined) born or naturalized in the United States are also citizens (again undefined) of the Untied States.

To ann #981:

JGC: “As far as I can tell, [See Noevo’s] ‘logical’ argument in support of human being from conception took the form…”

You: “You forgot: 4) The only other alternative leads inexorably to denying first-graders the opportunity to go to college by executing them for having had hemispherectomies, then having godless non-nutritive orgies instead of virtuously dropping bombs on the infidels who are on the brink of overrunning the country.”

That’s pretty slick, ann.
It’s virtually completely false, of course, but it’s a real zinger.
I say “virtually” because it hints at an element of truth:
Over time, small changes in a certain direction can lead to massive change. You would agree to this, especially as a person who believes in, say, evolution.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

It seems to me the 14th Amendment is focusing on defining “citizen”, not defining “person.”

The fourteenth amendment defines neither ‘person’ nor ‘citizen’,

Section 1 of the 14th Amendment is about citizenship and rights. I would say that it does define citizen (any person born or naturalized in the United States), and that it extends rights to non-citizens -- ie, the last two clauses are ("nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws") are not contingent on citizenship, but on personhood.

While the words "person" and "persons" are never defined, there or elsewhere in the Constitution, they're always used in a context that makes it clear the intended meaning is "a person (or persons) born" -- eg, "No person" shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress (etc.) who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress (etc.) shall have engaged in in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

And neither word is ever used in a context that even suggests or implies that the intended meaning is "a person or persons unborn." There's really no originalist argument at all to be made for there being constitutional rights for the unborn, which is presumably why Scalia says it's up to the states.

To Bill Price #1006:

“I might, by hypothesis, have the power, but I would not have the moral authority to override the uncoerced wishes of the only affected person.”

That doesn’t sound too bad. It’s like half-good.
Because, as even JGC #974 would agree, the mother MIGHT not be the only affected person.

“Being a moral person myself, I could not forbid the procedure unless coercion causes actual consent to be absent… lack of moral authority to override the expressed, uncoerced wishes of the only person affected. IOW, it would be immoral to forbid the hypothesized procedure.”

But you DO believe you have the moral authority to override the uncoerced wishes of some people.
For instance, you think you have the moral authority to override someone who freely wishes to “coerce” another.

M-W defines “coerce” as “to make (someone) do something by using force or threats.”

What if the mother is threatened by the father (who she’s very close to) that if she DOES HAVE the abortion they’re relationship will be over, AND,
the mother is also threatened by her family (who she’s very close to) that if she does NOT HAVE the abortion she’ll be cut off from the family?

I guess the mother would then freely decide which of the relationships is more important to her,
or maybe freely decide that neither of those relationships is as important as her relationship with her baby.

Submitting to coercion is partly understandable. It’s also partly cowardice.

————————————————————-
“By your hypothesis, terminating the pregnancy would convert the fetus into a borderline viable preemy.”

False, of course.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1007:

You: “All your arguments for why a zygote is a human being have failed. Let’s review them…
(2) Because many/most people have always known that it is.
Unless liberals traveled back in time and altered the historical record, many/most people have always thought that life began at viability. The Catholic Church thought so until 1869.”
Then...
“I left the sentence unfinished because I wasn’t satisfied that it covered every iteration of official Catholic doctine, then forgot to get back to it. But I was going to say “viability in its own terms — ie, ensoulment or something equivalent to it.”

Me: “And your support for THIS incomprehensible mishmash about the Catholic Church is what?”

You: “See #833.”

Oh, like #833's “eg, per Augustine, abortion could not be regarded “as homicide, for there cannot be a living soul in a body that lacks sensation due to its not yet being fully formed.”” ?

I think Augustine also surmised that creation didn’t happen in six days, but instead in one day or instantaneously.
Did many/most Catholics accept that?

In way of response to the rest of your #883 Catholic mishmash/trash…

“Wendell Watters, a Canadian psychiatrist, makes the unsupported claim that prior to 1869 and except for three years during the reign of Sixtus V (1588-1591), "The Church had officially accepted the theory of delayed animation for 500 years."40 This, of course, is completely untrue. The Church had never at any time "officially" accepted the theory of delayed animation. It did, however, mitigate punishment if the abortion was of an unanimated fetus. But it never taught that there was such a thing as an unanimated fetus; it gave the benefit of the doubt to the penitent that this might be the case in an early abortion. The only official Church teaching on the subject of animation is that of Pope Innocent XI which condemned the position that ensoulment took place at birth.41”
Much more at http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=3362

(But maybe the hyperlink above won’t count, because any defense of the Catholic Church by an orthodox Catholic source must, by definition, be disregarded. Right?)

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

Poll!
Most annoying current troll:
See Noevo
APV
MJD
zebra

By JustaTech (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1011:

“Put another way:
If the proposition you’re trying to prove logically true is that a growing cell with the natural power to grow into a recognizable human being already is one, you can’t do it by arguing that a growing cell with the natural power to grow into a recognizable human being already is one.”

In a fantasy world, where not all things work the way they do in our world…
a little child had a handsome, healthy father.
But the father later got into a car crash that took two of his limbs and mashed his face *beyond recognition*.
Later in the hospital, the child saw the doctors take the bandages from the face of the now two-limbed man to reveal a still grotesque face.
An *unrecognizable*, icky face.
The child screamed in horror: “That’s not my daddy!”
and she ran into the hallway screaming further
“Where’s my daddy? Who took my daddy? Where is he?"

Much later in the hospital, the child visited another room, and saw the face she immediately *recognized*.
And the child screamed with delight and with tears:
“Daddy! Daddy! Where have you been?"

And Daddy, through his tears, said:
"Honey, I've been here all along."

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

Hey, little weasel, you're a big time anti abortion kind of critter: which doctor are your buddies planning to murder next, and at what time have they scheduled the hit? If you could give us fair warning, that would be a big help.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

@ JustaTech:

That's really a difficult question because if one is currently VERY active it may bias us towards that him- HOWEVER if we looked to performance OVER TIME, we might choose another.

So, for the Former, See No, and the latter, MJD.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

That ONE

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

To JGC #1012:

“First: I don’t believe that societies have any moral obligations: they have ethical ones, certainly, but not moral ones.”

First, an aside from Merriam-Webster...
“Ethical: involving questions of *right and wrong* behavior…: following accepted rules of behavior : *morally* right and good."
“Moral: concerning or relating to what is *right and wrong* in human behavior
: based on what you think is *right and good*: considered right and good by most people : agreeing with a standard of right behavior.”
………..
M-W aside, I’ll rephrase:

Don’t you at least think society has an *ethical* obligation to conclude that a human oocyte, sygote, embryo and/or fetus could NOT POSSIBLY be a human being BEFORE society allows them to be killed?

.............
“… I believe that even if we do know that a fetus has developed sufficiently to represent a human being that woman still possesses the right to choose whether to continue the pregnancy to term or to terminate it.”

So, it is ethical to value the rights of one human being over the rights of another (and innocent and helpless) human being, to the point of killing the latter.

That’s some “ethics”.
.............
Me: “But, say, at any time in recorded history, have germ cells from a member of the species homo sapiens given rise to a new individual member of the species homo sapiens?”

You: “Sigh. You don’t know what a germ cell is, do you See? One more example of why you lack the ability to take part in this discussion in any substantive manner.”

Perhaps you mean a fertilized oocyte is A germ cell, I don’t know.
But EVEN IF a fertilized oocyte is only one type of germ cell, have any OTHER types of germ cells been observed to grow naturally into what even a child would recognize as a human being?
............
Me: “By “bilaterally” synchronous, do you mean synchronous between the two sides of the brain?”

You: “Read the Anand et al cite I provided, See.”

Oh, I see.
So, an acceptable response to you could be: “Want the right answer on an ethical question? Read, say, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Case Closed.”

Why won’t YOU explain a term YOU used?
By “*bilaterally* synchronous”, do you mean synchronous between the two sides of the brain?
....................
“(I will note that I left out a third minimal criteria—that the neural activity observed originate in the cortex.)”

You left out a *minimal* criteria? Imagine that.
And the minimal criteria you’ve added is ‘observed to originate in the cortex.’

M-W says “cortex” is “medical : the outer layer of an organ in the body and especially of the brain”.

Others say
“Human brain development is a protracted process that begins in the THIRD gestational week (GW) with the differentiation of the neural progenitor cells and extends at least through late adolescence, arguably throughout the lifespan… The largest and most important brain information processing networks involve the neocortex and the subcortical nuclei that relay information to and from the neocortex… The subcortical nuclei are clusters of neurons that serve as both signal relay centers communicating between the neocortex and the rest of the body, and as relays among different areas of the CORTEX… during childhood and adolescence CHANGES in brain structure are at least as DRAMATIC as those at the end of life.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2989000/

“The laminar structure of the cerebral CORTEX is encoded EARLY in development. By [gestational age] WEEK 8, neuroblasts begin to differentiate into either specific neuronal cell types or macrogila, depending on their location within a complex topographic matrix of molecular gradients in the ventricular zone layer.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3055433/

I’m sure we could go on and on.
But your important minimal addition essentially seems to be
‘neural activity observed originate in the outer layer of the brain.’

Well, stop the presses, and let’s get that headline out there.
..............
“So you’re argument has become that the ability to grow is not the property that demonstrates an oocyte is a human being but instead is simply the property that will at a later date make it possible for us to all-caps RECOGNIZE it as a human being?”

Sigh. See story in #1022.
...........................
“That runs us right back to the original question: since growth isn’t the property that requires we consider it to be a human being, what property is it instead that requires we consider an oocyte to be a human being rather than a human cell?”

Growth is A property, ONE property, of living things.
Living things naturally grow/develop into greater levels of MATURITY (e.g. See #797 Senior citizen back through Zygote).
A fertilized oocyte is *substantively different* from all other human cells in that its growing maturity is “recognizable” as, say, Daddy or Mommy, and not something that just, say, needs a trim (e.g. nose hair).
............................

Me: “So, even though you think it could [be a human being], even though you’re not sure, you’re sure we can ethically kill it?”

You: “Yes.”

Well, there you have it.
..........................

"And more generally, with respect to your example … given that I’m not aware of any argument which requires we conclude a fetus’s presumptive rights must take precedence over a woman’s right to control her own reproductive health and decide if and when to bring a pregnancy to term, I believe that the woman described in your example may still ethically elect to terminate the pregnancy.”

I’ll add you to the list.
Now I’m 8 for 8.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

And Daddy, through his tears, said:
“Honey, I’ve been here all along.”

If I'm right in thinking that the argument now turns on the assertion that an unchangeable human essence is present from the moment of fertilization, ergo the zygote is a human being, how do you account for this scenario:

“Steve” at conception splitting into "Steve" and "Scott" six days later?

I would say that alters the essential Steve-ness of the unicellular organism in a pretty substantial way. Or Scott-ness, as the case may be. But either way, the essence of at least one of them arises after conception.

So. The essence of a human being is either (a) not naturally, fully, completely present from zygote-hood onward; or (b) you need to explain how, why and from where the natural, full, complete essence of two human beings gets into a single cell that later becomes monozygotic twins.

@#1020

As I already said, I wasn't happy with that statement. That's why I didn't finish it. I offered it only by way of explaining why the line read that way. So quit cherry-picking it. It makes you look desperate. Because as I also already effing said:

My real point was that if your present belief — ie, that life begins at conception — is based on plain, simple logic, common sense and observation, the Catholic Church has been illogical, unobservant and lacking in common sense for approximately 1900 of the last 2000 years.

Apart from that, see #833.

To ann #1018:

So, you say the 14th amendment defines “citizen” but never defines “person/personhood”,
but that it does extend rights to *non-citizens* - rights including life, liberty, or property and equal protection of the laws.

So, while an un-born person may not now be able to be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or even a citizen,
you would say the un-born person COULD still have the rights to life, liberty, etc.

“There’s really no originalist argument at all to be made for there being constitutional rights for the unborn, which is presumably why Scalia says it’s up to the states.”

Or maybe you could say, by definition, if the constitution doesn’t prohibit states from permitting something, it protects their right to permit it. In theory, at least.

In any case, the issue is being fought at the federal and state levels:
http://data.rhrealitycheck.org/law-topic/personhood/

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

Growth is A property, ONE property, of living things.
Living things naturally grow/develop into greater levels of MATURITY (e.g. See #797 Senior citizen back through Zygote).
A fertilized oocyte is *substantively different* from all other human cells in that its growing maturity is “recognizable” as, say, Daddy or Mommy, and not something that just, say, needs a trim (e.g. nose hair).

If you're saying that the property makes it different is that it's growing maturity will later be recognizable as a human being, that's either an argument from potential or you're just saying a zygote is a human being because that's what I believe a zygote is -- a human being.

And that's not a logic-based argument. What recognizable, identifiable property makes it a human being, apart from its power -- which it's already exercising -- to grow into a recognizable human being? (Or two?)

Sorry, the post at #1022 exceeds the FDA's daily recommended allowance of treacle.

To ann #1027, #1028:

“If I’m right in thinking that the argument now turns on the assertion that an unchangeable human essence is present from the moment of fertilization, ergo the zygote is a human being, how do you account for this scenario:
“Steve” at conception splitting into “Steve” and “Scott” six days later?
I would say that alters the essential Steve-ness of the unicellular organism in a pretty substantial way. Or Scott-ness, as the case may be. But either way, the essence of at least one of them arises after conception.”

It’s appropriate that you put “Steve” in quotes, as I did.
I would say the assertion stands – that, to borrow some words, an unchangeable human essence is present from the moment of fertilization.
………………………
“… the Catholic Church has been illogical, unobservant and lacking in common sense for approximately 1900 of the last 2000 years.
Apart from that, see #833.”

Apart from that, see #1020.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

Some words for the day:

“And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit
and she exclaimed with a loud cry, "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!
And why is this granted me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”
……………………….
“In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father
that one of these little ones be lost.”

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

So, you say the 14th amendment defines “citizen” but never defines “person/personhood”,
but that it does extend rights to *non-citizens* – rights including life, liberty, or property and equal protection of the laws.

It extends them to any person within the jurisdiction of any state, without specifying citizenship.

So, while an un-born person may not now be able to be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or even a citizen, you would say the un-born person COULD still have the rights to life, liberty, etc.

If the word "person" in the due-process and equal-protection clauses -- ie, "nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws” -- was held to include the unborn, then yes, obviously.

But as I said:

There’s really no originalist argument at all to be made for there being constitutional rights for the unborn, which is presumably why Scalia says it’s up to the states.

Speaking of which:

Or maybe you could say, by definition, if the constitution doesn’t prohibit states from permitting something, it protects their right to permit it. In theory, at least.

^^You seem to be under the impression that you're saying something different from the statement you're responding to there. But I have no idea what it is. You could put it either way. You'd be saying the same thing.

But wrt abortion, it would be a moot point, because Roe v. Wade does prohibit the states from outlawing it.

Also, just incidentally, I wasn't actually speaking from a partisan perspective. Because I'm not actually pro-originalism. Anti-, if anything. I was just stating a fact.

In any event, that there's no originalist argument to be made for constitutional rights for the unborn doesn't necessarily mean that there's no argument to be made for it at all. It just means there's no basis for arguing that the framers intended it. Which there isn't.

But you should blame them if that ticks you off. I had nothing to do with it.

At least he's given up arguing that his position is based on science and common sense.

I would say the assertion stands – that, to borrow some words, an unchangeable human essence is present from the moment of fertilization.

It's a matter of belief.

To ann #1030:

“If you’re saying that the property makes it different is that it’s growing maturity will later be recognizable as a human being, that’s either an argument from potential or you’re just saying a zygote is a human being because that’s what I believe a zygote is — a human being.
“And that’s not a logic-based argument. What recognizable, identifiable property makes it a human being, apart from its power — which it’s already exercising — to grow into a recognizable human being? (Or two?)”

In another fantasy world, where not all things work the way they do in our world…
In early spring time, a father took his little girl down to a local pond.
She had been there once before, and had seen and learned about tadpoles and frogs.
This time she saw some newly hatched fish, something like this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=hatched+fish+pics&biw=1002&bih=414&tbm=…

And she screamed: “Look Daddy. Tadpoles!”
And Daddy said: “Actually, honey, they’re not tadpoles. They’re little fish.”
And she said: “But they don’t look like little fish, Daddy.”
And Daddy said: “I know, but they are.”
And she giggled and laughed: “No they’re not. They’re tadpoles. You’re silly, Daddy!”
Then she giggled and laughed some more as Daddy played the Creature from the Black Lagoon and chased her around the pond.

In early Fall, the two returned to the pond.
She saw some minnows and she screamed: “Look, Daddy. Fish!”
And Daddy said: “Yes! Actually, honey, they’re those things you thought were tadpoles last time. They’ve just grown up a bit.”
And she paused, and her eyes grew big, and she asked “Really, Daddy?”
And Daddy said: “Really, honey.”
And she giggled and screamed “I love you, Daddy! And I like fish, even the *little ones*, whatever they look like.”
And Daddy smiled and said “And I you. And me too!”
And she looked puzzled for a second, but then beamed “You’re funny, Daddy!”
Then she giggled and laughed some more as Daddy again played the Creature from the Black Lagoon and chased her around the pond.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1034:

You: “There’s really no originalist argument at all to be made for there being constitutional rights for the unborn, which is presumably why Scalia says it’s up to the states.”

Me: “Or maybe you could say, by definition, if the constitution doesn’t prohibit states from permitting something, it protects their right to permit it. In theory, at least.”

You: “You seem to be under the impression that you’re saying something different from the statement you’re responding to there. But I have no idea what it is. You could put it either way. You’d be saying the same thing.”

Oh, maybe I was just trying to having some fun.
Maybe kind of like in #719:
Me: “However, I THINK that maybe the decision by the five Supremes decision essentially told the states that the states’ permission of abortion had Constitutional protection.”

You: “Not exactly. I mean, by definition, if the constitution doesn’t prohibits states from permitting something, it protects their right to permit it. In theory, at least.”
……………….

“But wrt abortion, it would be a moot point, because Roe v. Wade does prohibit the states from outlawing it.”

Few if any things are “moot” in the long term. See Dred Scott.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

@See Noevo #1033

Isn't that nice that you share some bible quotes with us so we can appreciate it's wisdom?
I've got one for you too See:
"She lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emissions was like that of horses"
Ezekiel 23:20

Sure. That order of change would be the very long term, though. Not to say that the unforeseeable doesn't sometimes happen. But I don't think there's a route to that destination yet in view.

In the near term, overturning Roe and letting the states do as they will is likelier. That could happen. It might not. But it could.

re See Noevo, August 11, 2015, #1019:
SN,you have taught us, over the weeks, that you have no compunction about dissembling and misrepresenting people's statements.

To Bill Price #1006:

“I might, by hypothesis, have the power, but I would not have the moral authority to override the uncoerced wishes of the only affected person.”

That doesn’t sound too bad. It’s like half-good.
Because, as even JGC #974 would agree, the mother MIGHT not be the only affected person.

Let's let JGC express any agreement [s]he might have, rather than putting forth your argument as if the were JGC's. The hypothetical we're discussing concerns the termination of a pregnancy. The patient is affected by such a procedure, and nobody else. what other person is going to climb onto the procedure table with her?

“Being a moral person myself, I could not forbid the procedure unless coercion causes actual consent to be absent… lack of moral authority to override the expressed, uncoerced wishes of the only person affected. IOW, it would be immoral to forbid the hypothesized procedure.”

But you DO believe you have the moral authority to override the uncoerced wishes of some people.
For instance, you think you have the moral authority to override someone who freely wishes to “coerce” another.

It's not clear what scare-quoted "coerce" means to you, so I use the regular English construction. In any case, your hypothetical does not include any other people, only the patient, and possibly the patient's end of any coercion that may be present, without regard to those outside the hypothetical who may be applying the coercion.
Coercion is immoral, so it is moral to resist it, and to help another resist it. I do not have the moral authority to override the immorality of third parties, except on behalf of an unwilling victim of the immorality. This has to do with boundaries between and among people: but boundaries is a moral concept. A catlick knows little, if anything, of morality, using submission to the authority of the church as a substitute: the church, in its greed for power, does not recognize any boundaries to its authority.

What if the mother is threatened by the father (who she’s very close to) that if she DOES HAVE the abortion they’re relationship will be over, AND,
the mother is also threatened by her family (who she’s very close to) that if she does NOT HAVE the abortion she’ll be cut off from the family?

I guess the mother would then freely decide which of the relationships is more important to her,
or maybe freely decide that neither of those relationships is as important as her relationship with her baby.

The patient is not yet a mother, since the neither the original hypothetical nor this new hypothesis don't mention any children. That's just another example of your catlick dissembling.
Much as it distresses the misogynistic paulists you represent, the patient gets to "freely decide which of the relationships is more important to her", even though she is female. She also, much to your dismay, gets to freely decide on the procedure in question. The moral response to her decision is to respect her personhood, her humanity, her interest in her own life: the catlick/fundy response is coercion, dissembling, and misrepresentation.

It is moral to help a victim of coercion to escape from it, to regain the freedom and dignity that the coercer would deny her, if that be her choice.

Submitting to coercion is partly understandable. It’s also partly cowardice.

As a devout catlick, you have submitted to the coercion of the church's threats of eternal damnation (or whatever) for failure to submit to the church's authority. You would, thus, know about cowardice, wouldn't you.
————————————————————-

“By your hypothesis, terminating the pregnancy would convert the fetus into a borderline viable preemy.”

False, of course.

How is my statement false?

By Bill Price (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

For those of you who are inexplicably continuing to feed S.N, I thought I'd note that he does still retain some straight humor value.

n another fantasy world, where not all things work the way they do in our world…
[...]
“You’re funny, Daddy!”
Then she giggled and laughed some more as Daddy again played the Creature from the Black Lagoon and chased her around the pond.

But tragically, either of them saw the zombie unicorns galloping towards them.

Was there a point?

Folks,

No correctives for Bill Price’s #1041?
There’s plenty there to be fixed.

ann? Anyone?

Maybe your correctives only go in one direction here (i.e. against me)?

I’ve done enough correcting for one day.

Ann? Anyone? Anyone?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhiCFdWeQfA

By See Noevo (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noevo, #1044, August 12, 2015

Folks,
No correctives for Bill Price’s #1041?
There’s plenty there to be fixed.

Perhaps there's nothing to correct, as opposed to fix (as in "the fix is in.").

Maybe your correctives only go in one direction here (i.e. against me)?

Maybe that's where they're needed.
----------------------------------------------------
Seriously, self-blinded one, check yourself for projection. I'm not the one afflicted by the arrogance of faith, so I can and do appreciate being corrected.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 11 Aug 2015 #permalink

No correctives for Bill Price’s #1041?
There’s plenty there to be fixed.

Didn't realize we were your little elves, mastah. We'll get right to it.

Maybe your correctives only go in one direction here (i.e. against me)?

It wouldn't be you, per se. "Against you" just coincides with logic and ethics.

First, *I'm* giggling at SN's idea that tadpoles (which become frogs) and minnows (which are baby fist) are the same thing. He has already proven he has no knowledge of biology; that story just confirms it.

Second: it's very distressing that SN is going against catholic teachings by ranting against vaccines just because a few of them came from long ago aborted fetuses. Anyone who has done any research (or even googled it) on the subject is aware that the National Catholic Bioethics Center has fully addressed this question. The Church supports vaccination. If an alternative is available, it may be used, but if no alternative is available then as per the website: The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine.

(sighs, wonders when SN will go to the Kenyan Bishop thread and start supporting THEM)...

If you mean this:

A catlick knows little, if anything, of morality, using submission to the authority of the church as a substitute: the church, in its greed for power, does not recognize any boundaries to its authority.

The first part is a matter of opinion, but I strongly disagree with it. In my experience and observation, Catholics run the same moral gamut as the rest of humanity. To pick a public figure as an example, I would say that Stephen Colbert's professional conduct is an exemplar of civic, moral and ethical virtue. And he's definitely a devout Catholic.

I very much doubt that Bill Price would disagree with that, or that he literally meant that all Catholics in the whole wide world are morally ignorant automatons. I think it's pretty clear that he was just making an anti-religion statement in the form of trash-talk aimed at you.

And since you've repeatedly (and apparently intentionally) insulted, belittled, disrespected and mischaracterized the beliefs and values of other people on this thread, I don't think you're in a position to complain about that.

But it was not too long ago that people said stuff like that and meant it, out of real hatred for Catholics. And there's probably some vestigial anti-Catholicism driving anti-immigrant sentiment in some quarters even in the present day. So in another context, I'd probably object.

I'm not sure I understand the second part. The Church recognizes boundaries in its authority. But it does not recognize a moral authority greater than itself on earth. So if the intended meaning in context was "moral authority," it's true enough.

To MI Dawn #1048:

“First, *I’m* giggling at SN’s idea that tadpoles (which become frogs) and minnows (which are baby fist) are the same thing. He has already proven he has no knowledge of biology; that story just confirms it.”

Now THAT WOULD be worth a giggle.
But, you better read the story again.
Then you can giggle at yourself.

“Second: it’s very distressing that SN is going against catholic teachings by ranting against vaccines just because a few of them came from long ago aborted fetuses… The Church supports vaccination.”

I asked questions about vaccines derived from aborted babies, but where did I rant against vaccines, per se?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1050:

“If you mean this:
“A catlick knows little, if anything, of morality…” The first part is a matter of opinion, but I…”

No, I did not mean that.
But I see you have expounded once again on something which should go without saying.

And I think Stephen Colbert is probably as definitely devout a Catholic as, say, Nancy Pelosi.
A true Catholic doesn’t support, say, abortion or gay marriage.

“And since you’ve repeatedly (and apparently intentionally)
insulted, belittled, disrespected and mischaracterized the beliefs and values of other people on this thread…”

Just out of curiosity, do you think that maybe YOU have repeatedly insulted, belittled, disrespected and mischaracterized my beliefs and values?
(You can refer to #992 to aid in your reflection.)

And again, no, I wasn’t referring to Price’s #1041 “catlick” statements when I asked for your correctives of his post.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

@SN: so you replied to the first part of my comment, but TOTALLY IGNORED the second part, which addresses your "vaccines from aborted babies". So I'll make it easier for you and bold it.

Second: it’s very distressing that SN is going against catholic teachings by ranting against vaccines just because a few of them came from long ago aborted fetuses. Anyone who has done any research (or even googled it) on the subject is aware that the National Catholic Bioethics Center has fully addressed this question. The Church supports vaccination. If an alternative is available, it may be used, but if no alternative is available then as per the website: The reason is that the risk to public health, if one chooses not to vaccinate, outweighs the legitimate concern about the origins of the vaccine.

SN: "I asked questions about vaccines derived from aborted babies, but where did I rant against vaccines, per se?"

By the factually wrong premise you started with.

SN,

A true Catholic doesn’t support, say, abortion or gay marriage.

If I'm not mistaken a True Catholic also believes that the bread and wine literally transforms into the body and blood of Jesus, that he was born of a miraculous conception*, healed the sick, raised the dead, walked on water and was resurrected after he died? Believe what you like, by all means, but this isn't rational discourse territory and it is utterly nuts to pretend it is.

* I was going to mention that when you asked when a zygote ever grew into a human being but figured you wouldn't get the joke.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink
“And since you’ve repeatedly (and apparently intentionally) insulted, belittled, disrespected and mischaracterized the beliefs and values of other people on this thread…”

Just out of curiosity, do you think that maybe YOU have repeatedly insulted, belittled, disrespected and mischaracterized my beliefs and values?

Are you really arguing two wrongs make a right?

SN on August 10 in comment #970

I’m off to play some golf, like Barack Hussein Obama.

Maybe this will hit comment #1000 while I’m gone.

SN has worked pretty hard to get this thread to #1056, but no sign (s)he was ever playing golf, or it was a very short round.

To MI Dawn #1053:

“@SN: so you replied to the first part of my comment, but TOTALLY IGNORED the second part, which addresses your “vaccines from aborted babies”. So I’ll make it easier for you and bold it.”

Thanks, but you didn’t need to make it easier for me.
I never once here said I was against, or would forbid, the use of the particular vaccines in question. I never did because I'm not.
As I said earlier, I asked questions here about those vaccines, and I never ‘ranted’ against vaccines, per se.

I’m not going against Catholic teaching,
but I don’t understand why it would distress you if I did.

Your quote from the National Catholic Bioethics Center seems reasonable and ethical to me, as I think it so seems to you.

What’s the problem?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

ann, #1050:

I very much doubt that Bill Price would disagree [] that [Catholics run the same moral gamut as the rest of humanity],

You would be correct, ann. There exist people in all fundy religions, whether Catholic, Protestant, Moslem, Jewish, … that question the moral pronouncements of their church leaders, and substitute their own morality for the official ones. Sometimes, the substitute is ill-advised, sometimes—when it reflects the innate human morality—it is markedly superior.

or that he literally meant that all Catholics in the whole wide world are morally ignorant automatons. I think it’s pretty clear that he was just making an anti-religion statement in the form of trash-talk aimed at you.

The statement was not so much anti-religion (although there is some of that) as anti-fundy in general and antiSN's fundamentalism, specifically. SN's perversions of morality make him such an inviting target. Yes, it was also aimed at those other religiosi who, like SN, "are morally ignorant automatons".

I’m not sure I understand the second part. The Church recognizes boundaries in its authority. But it does not recognize a moral authority greater than itself on earth. So if the intended meaning in context was “moral authority,” it’s true enough.

The RCC's boundaries include, to them, imposing their moral theories on everyone, whether their victims have subjected themselves to church authority (like SN and ann) or not. I'm outside their boundaries, but that doesn't stop them. None of my female grand-younguns are Catholic, but the RCC would deny them the full range of health care. My gay grandson is not Catholic, but the RCC would deny him any rights they could withhold from him.

Again, the RCC (as well as fundy protestants and moslems) are eager to reach outside their boundaries to impose their power on me and everyone. SN seems to think that that evil is just great, when the RCC does it.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

To gaist #1056:

Ann: “And since you’ve repeatedly (and apparently intentionally) insulted, belittled, disrespected and mischaracterized the beliefs and values of other people on this thread…”

Me: “Just out of curiosity, do you think that maybe YOU have repeatedly insulted, belittled, disrespected and mischaracterized my beliefs and values?”

You: “Are you really arguing two wrongs make a right?”

No, I'm not. But apparently ann is**.

**In anticipation of a possible corrective from the ped-ann-tic, I should add that she may not have technically argued for or justified her frequent type of response (see #922). She just makes that frequent type of response.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

To Renate #1057:

“SN on August 10 in comment #970
"I’m off to play some golf, like Barack Hussein Obama.
Maybe this will hit comment #1000 while I’m gone."
SN has worked pretty hard to get this thread to #1056, but no sign (s)he was ever playing golf, or it was a very short round.”

Well, I can 100% guarantee you that if, for some reason, you ever seriously tried to prove your snarky insinuation was true, you would lose.

Actually, it turned out to be quite a remarkable day:
1)I shot a 7-over par 78.
2)The 18-hole round took about 3.4 hours. From the time I left my house until the time I returned, over 5.5 hours.
3)That night, although I didn’t plan or intend it, one of my comments became #1000. As God is my witness.

I was thankful for such a good day.
Thanks for bringing it up.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

No, I’m not. But apparently ann is**.

Saying that doesn't make it so.

ann was call you out for pretending outrage at being called mean names, while you haven't shied away from doing the same. That is no an example of two wrongs making right, that's her castigating your hypocrisy.

What you did, dismissing her complain with "but YOU're mean too!" is a clear example of the said folly. Or how else would you interpret it?

My rhetorical question was merely a thinly veiled pointing-out-the-obvious.

Re: Bill Price #1059.

Ok, folks, if correcting Bill’s #1041 was too tough for you, maybe you’ll find this one easier:

“The RCC’s boundaries include, to them, imposing their moral theories on everyone, whether their victims have subjected themselves to church authority (like SN and ann) or not. I’m outside their boundaries, but that doesn’t stop them. None of my female grand-younguns are Catholic, but the RCC would deny them the full range of health care. My gay grandson is not Catholic, but the RCC would deny him any rights they could withhold from him.
Again, the RCC (as well as fundy protestants and moslems) are eager to reach outside their boundaries to impose their power on me and everyone. SN seems to think that that evil is just great, when the RCC does it.”

Ann?
Anyone?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

See: "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head."
Romans 12:20

Does that answer your question?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

Are we playing bible quotes now? How about:

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

Ok, folks, if correcting Bill’s #1041 was too tough for you, maybe you’ll find this one easier:

Ann?
Anyone?

SN, I gather this means that you haven't gotten instructions from your masters on addressing my statements and questions, and are reduced to appealing to other commentators for distraction.

After your goofing golfing yesterday, are your legs too tired to resume the tapdancing you've done for so long? {meta: we'll see if the &s> tags work as well as the &strike> or &del> tags in this comment engine. If not, apply your choice to the third word of this paragraph.}

By Bill Price (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

Duh. It looks like <s> works here; it also looks like I misspelled &lt; as &amp; thrice. Sorry 'bout that.

SN, the above is what honest people do when they make a mistake. Why not try it, if the church's morality-substitute allows?

By Bill Price (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

Just out of curiosity, do you think that maybe YOU have repeatedly insulted, belittled, disrespected and mischaracterized my beliefs and values?

I haven't been very nice.

And again, no, I wasn’t referring to Price’s #1041 “catlick” statements when I asked for your correctives of his post.

Well. I tried. If you want my comments on something in particular, feel free to bring it to my attention. The "Ann? Anybody?" approach does not come across as a sincere inquiry.

SN has worked pretty hard to get this thread to #1056, but no sign (s)he was ever playing golf, or it was a very short round.

Ah, for the days when comments were time-stamped.

Still, it's clear that yet another handicap isn't outside the realm of plausibility.

You could also correct anything you felt needed correction yourself, of course. It's the usual way.

I have a question, little weasel. Some guy plowed his pickup truck into the entrance of the local health clinic. The bumper was plastered with these weirdo stickers so I have to ask: was he one of yours, or does he belong to some other murderous women hating extremist group?

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

Ok, folks, if correcting Bill’s #1041 was too tough for you, maybe you’ll find this one easier:

Ann?
Anyone?

You seem to be laboring under the impression that posts adressed to and answering point or questions raised by you are somehow the responsibility of others to address. Why is that?

To ann:

OK, so you’ve read Bill Price’s #1041 and #1059, as well as my #1063 which included a requote of his last paragraphs of #1059,
yet the ONLY thing you took issue with, or at least commented on, was his crazy ‘catlicks are evil’ stuff.

I asked what correctives were needed and your only response was on that.
And even then, your expounding was unnecessary. That his statement was seriously stupid should have gone without saying.

So, you must be OK with everything else Bill Price said in #1041, #1059.

I’ll have to remember to keep that it mind.
It should be easy, since you're both in the 7 for 7 group, or 8 for 8.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

It should be easy, since you’re both in the 7 for 7 group, or 8 for 8.

Does your dishonesty really know no bounds.

What part of repeat "No" as an asnswer to your question do you not understand?

Or is that your first tentative step to, as you put it, trying find out by rehashing what has, or may have, been said on the issue to this point?

Sorry for the serial commenting, I'm distracted.

whether their victims have subjected themselves to church authority (like SN and ann)

I'm not Catholic.

@#1074 --

If you need a protector, just say so. Otherwise, speak for yourself.

To Robert Bell #1072:

“I have a question, little weasel.”

First off, is that a grudging compliment?
In other words, is a “little” weasel better in your eyes than a “big” weasel?

[Ann, do you think Robert Bell is blustering or bullying?
If not, why not?
If you do, why haven’t you said anything about it? You’ve accused me of blustering and bullying, after all.]

“Some guy plowed his pickup truck into the entrance of the local health clinic. The bumper was plastered with these weirdo stickers so I have to ask: was he one of yours, or does he belong to some other murderous women hating extremist group?”

That sounds bad. Was anyone killed?
Would you please post the link to the article about the assault-by-truck?
I wonder if this attack is becoming a trend, and if so, how big the trend is. I know well over 50 million lives have been aborted over the last 42 years. Do you know how many abortionists have been physically attacked or killed by pro-lifers over the same time period, or even over the last few years?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1076:

Bill Price: “The RCC’s boundaries include, to them, imposing their moral theories on everyone, whether their victims have subjected themselves to church authority (like SN and ann) or not.”

Your “corrective”: “I’m not Catholic.”

Quite a comprehensive answer, ann.
So then you concur that the RCC’s boundaries include, to them, imposing their moral theories ON EVERYONE, whether their victims have subjected themselves to church authority or not.

Tell me, ann, how has the RCC imposed on you recently, or even over the course of your whole life?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink
[You]So, with my more precise definition* of abortion, you believe “Abortion should be allowed in ALL cases.”

[Me, inn #903]No.

How hard is it to understand this?

* And not only did you redefine the term, clearly pointing out how it was different from the way I had used the term, and without rechecking or re-confirming my stance you proclaimed my "opinion" as fact. That would have been deceitful and dishonest, even if I had not already challenged your original interpretation of my opinion. Now it was even more so.

And yet you still continue flailing your "7 for 7". The only conclusion to draw is you're either unbelievably dishonest, or incredibly thick. And I'm not being a meanie. I'm just sating how I see it, I hope you will convince me otherwise.

See Noevo, every post without recanting and apologizing for your conduct reveals further your glaring dishonesty.

[Ann, do you think Robert Bell is blustering or bullying?

No.

If not, why not?

I've never seen him blustering or bullying.

If you do, why haven’t you said anything about it? You’ve accused me of blustering and bullying, after all.]

They bullying was actually with reference to your wish to impose your religious beliefs on others, not your personal conduct. I don't think anybody here feels bullied by you.

See Noevo is clearly favors a literal interpretation of the bible. While I imagine that slavery, misogyny, discrimination against gays, etc are in line with his personal beliefs I'd like to see him own it. Either he's cherry-picking to support his beliefs and not a true Catholic or he's a bigoted scumbag.

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

ann, #1076, August 12, 2015, quoting me and responding:

whether their victims have subjected themselves to church authority (like SN and ann)

I’m not Catholic.

Oops, I goofed. I apologize for that.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

To gaist #1080:

Me: “So, with my more precise definition* of abortion, you believe “Abortion should be allowed in ALL cases.”

You: “No. How hard is it to understand this?”

Very hard.

However, I’ll recant and apologize in the future when you detail in the future precisely where you, if you had the power, would forbid abortion.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

#1085, See Noevo, August 12, 2015:

To gaist #1080:

Me: “So, with my more precise definition* of abortion …

See, I seem to have missed your "more precise definition of abortion." Can you point it out, and point out the less precise definition that you're comparing it to? If your proposed definition conflicts with the standard "termination of pregnancy, with or without prejudice to the ZEF" definition, please point out where anybody agreed to be bound by it? Thank you.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

In any case, the issue is being fought at the federal and state levels:
http://data.rhrealitycheck.org/law-topic/personhood/

Did you read the stuff at the other end of your link? They've gotten two states to pass laws that are allowed to stand because they're 100% toothless. Other than that, they've lost every battle. That's not a fight. It's a rout.

But the good news is:

The National Right to Life Committee and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops have refused to back state-level measures out of fear that state-level amendments will make their way to the Supreme Court and result in a decision that would reaffirm Roe v. Wade and undermine the progress that has been made in chipping away at the constitutional right to abortion at the state level.

^^They're right. It's a bad strategy.

To ann #1082:

Me: “You’ve accused me of blustering and bullying, after all.”

You: “They bullying was actually with reference to your wish to impose your religious beliefs on others, not your personal conduct. I don’t think anybody here feels bullied by you.”

Several points/questions:
1)If I wish to “impose” my religious beliefs about abortion on others, it’s about in the same way I wish to “impose” my religious beliefs about robbery or murder on others.

2)If you think nobody here feels bullied by me, why would you think anyone outside here would feel bullied by me?

3)In defining “bully”, the dictionaries talk of being “cruel/intimidating” to people who are “smaller/weaker”. How could this possibly be the case with me or the RCC? Do we threaten to kill or physically harm anyone? No. Do we threaten to imprison anyone? No. Why, we can’t even make anyone feel guilty or ashamed who doesn’t believe what we say is true. So, how can you accuse us of bullying?
4)No one could be accused of bullying for what wishes might be in his head. One could be accused of bullying ONLY if he speaks out or otherwise acts on those wishes. And if he so behaves, how would this not be part of his personal conduct?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

To Bill Price #1086:

“See, I seem to have missed your “more precise definition of abortion.” Can you point it out, and point out the less precise definition that you’re comparing it to?”

I gave what I thought was a “more precise definition of abortion” in #901, however, it was not precise enough, or actually, was perhaps not simple enough.

A simpler, and even more precise definition of abortion is: The willful, desired, intentional destruction of the life in the womb as an end or as a means to an end.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1087:

“Did you read the stuff at the other end of your link? They’ve gotten two states to pass laws that are allowed to stand because they’re 100% toothless. Other than that, they’ve lost every battle. That’s not a fight. It’s a rout.”

Some might say this very thread is a rout – about a dozen or so against one.

Most would have said the Chiefs were routing the Colts in January 2014 when they went up by 28 points early in the second half.

Some still say Christ on the cross was a rout.

Regardless of the current score, the RCC and me will keep fighting for life.

Here’s some other things I think:
It’s a long, long road…
But stay on that straight and narrow…
Follow the double yellow lines…
You might even get into a good rhythm…
There’s “Gold” at the end…
And I love women.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi4pzKvuEQM

By See Noevo (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

@JustaTech 1021

The first four named seem, for the most part, to limit themselves to one thread at a time, where they go on and on at length about their singular pet topics, while the last is more all-around and all-pervading. Given that I haven't noticed not-johnny of late, gonna have to go with the z-man, but not-johnny/phildo/whatever it calls itself takes the cake overall.

By Emma Crew (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink
I’m not Catholic.

Oops, I goofed. I apologize for that.

Frankly, I'm not convinced that S.N. is on particularly solid ground with respect to 1983 Coᴅᴇ bk. VI in the first place.

^ Nor did I come up with the insane disaster that is Unicode small caps.

SN proposes two non-standard definitions for the word 'abortion:

#901:

Abortion is the willful (by the mother and the “medical” person) and intended destruction of the life in the womb.

This sentence is well hidden in a long, rambling screed on other topics, such as contraception and the effects of an abortion procedure on the patient's life.
#1089:

The willful, desired, intentional destruction of the life in the womb as an end or as a means to an end.

He maintains that these are 'simpler' (at 17 and 21 words and by adding several new, irrelevant concepts) and somehow 'more precise' (by changing the subject, I guess) than the standard definition, the definition everyone else uses: termination of pregnancy.

He further fails to demonstrate that anyone else has agreed to use either definition for any purpose, yet he insists that his definitions govern the conversation.

He misrepresents the nature of abortion, insists that his misrepresentation has been acquiesced to by his interlocutors, yet he is the one representing some moral high ground. He is an excellent example of the moral bankruptcy of the RCC, as if they needed another.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 12 Aug 2015 #permalink

To gaist #1080:

Me: “So, with my more precise definition* of abortion, you believe “Abortion should be allowed in ALL cases.”

You: “No. How hard is it to understand this?”

Very hard.

Then you're not trying very hard. At all, in fact.

However, I’ll recant and apologize in the future when you detail in the future precisely where you, if you had the power, would forbid abortion.

Until you do you are a deceitful liar and a cheat.

Do you feel your behavior is honorable? Are you proud of it?

What you're doing is no different from me going "SEE NOEVO SUPPORTS UNFETTERED ABORTIONS!, as quoted in #207 "“[me], do you think terminating a pregnancy that is threatening the life of the mother is acceptable?”

[You] It CAN be, under certain circumstances.

I’ll recant and apologize in the future when you detail in the future precisely where you, if you had the power, would forbid abortion.

Like I told you in #903-904 and repeated in #914 already, I’ll elaborate once you’ve answered this:
In what situation no woman should be allowed an abortion, without exception and regardless of other circumstances?

Quid Pro Quo.

Or is that too much to ask from a maligning liar like yourself? Why not pretend even for a post to be more like your decent and upstanding brother, Speak Noevo, rather than the constant disappointment you are?

1)If I wish to “impose” my religious beliefs about abortion on others, it’s about in the same way I wish to “impose” my religious beliefs about robbery or murder on others.

Not compatible, because a secular society abhors robbery and murder too, it doesn't need your religion to oppose those.

See, again, are you familiar with the commandment "Do not bear false witness"? Lying about other people will not help your case.

Bill Price, See's beliefs are not that of the current Catholic Church, they are that of the Republican Party. He just wants the church of the Middle Ages.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

To gaist #1096:

You to me: “In what situation no woman should be allowed an abortion, without exception and regardless of other circumstances?”

I think that in ALL situations no woman should be allowed a direct abortion, that is, where the abortion is willed as an end or a means to an end.
I think in some situations a woman might be allowed an INdirect abortion, for example, the removal of a malignantly cancerous uterus which happens to have implanted in it a fertilized egg.

For more information that’s in line with what I think on this subject in general, you can read the article I linked earlier: http://www.cuf.org/2004/04/ectopic-for-discussion-a-catholic-approach-t…

Quid Pro Quo.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

Gotta love the moral meandering that takes three possible approaches to tubal pregnancy, all of which will result in the survival of the mother and the death of the fetus, and picks the one that causes the most harm to the mother on the basis that then you're not *explicitly* killing the baby.

That's part of why I'm a Protestant, not a Catholic. I refuse to believe that appearances are more important than outcome.

By Calli Arcale (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

To Calli Arcale #1100:

“That’s part of why I’m a Protestant, not a Catholic. I refuse to believe that appearances are more important than outcome.”

Calli, you don’t feel bullied by me or the Catholic Church, do you (ref: #1088)?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

@Calli: this is why my employer nearly killed me, except for the act of a very compassionate doctor. As an employee of a Catholic Hospital, my insurance wouldn't cover the treatment of an ectopic unless there was no vislble heartbeat at 6 weeks or the tube ruptured. The U/S tech swore (and documented) that there was a heartbeat - and there was. I saw it. The MD came in, looked and stated the tech was wrong, that was only tissue movement, not a heartbeat, so I got the MTX instead of having to wait for the tube to rupture, possibly killing me and leaving my 2 LIVING children motherless at very young ages.

Even as an atheist, I heap thanks on that very caring, compassionate OB/Gyn (whom I refuse to ever name as I don't want him to lose his job)

SN,

For more information that’s in line with what I think on this subject in general, you can read the article I linked earlier:

I suppose this obsession with "intent" is the natural consequence of believing an invisible sky fairy is constantly judging your every thought and action. The result is the fetishization of the fetus as being equivalent to an adult woman, which I think is monstrous.

Calli, you don’t feel bullied by me or the Catholic Church, do you (ref: #1088)?

She probably should do, since Catholics are actively working to reduce womens' access to contraception in the US. As just one example, here's a letter from the Archbishop of Boston calling for Planned Parenthood to be defunded.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

@SN: actually, yes, I DO feel bullied by you and other forced-birth promoters. You keep trying to interfere with MY living rights on the basis that a potential life has the same rights. As an atheist, I don't agree.

The mantra I live by is that a woman has the RIGHT TO CHOOSE. Abort, birth, adopt - what she does is her decision and no one else has the right to take that away. Not you, not the Catholic Church, not the other forced-birthers who don't give a hoot what happens AFTER the child is born.

See Noevo@1088

1) If I wish to “impose” my religious beliefs about abortion on others, it’s about in the same way I wish to “impose” my religious beliefs about robbery or murder on others.

gaist already got this in #1097 but here's a few other thoughts. Here's the definition of impose from Merriam-Webster:

: to cause (something, such as a tax, fine, rule, or punishment) to affect someone or something by using your authority

: to establish or create (something unwanted) in a forceful or harmful way

: to force someone to accept (something or yourself)

One notes that you use scare quotes so it's tough to know exactly what you mean by impose but going by the actual definition there is no imposing being done in regards to robbery or murder. As gaist said it is generally accepted in a secular society that robbery and murder are bad. Impose implies some kind of force and you can't really force someone to accept a belief they already hold, can you?

On the other hand their is a significant population that is pro-choice. In this case you and your church are trying to force them to accept a different belief; i.e. imposing your beliefs on them. If anything it is more similar to what the church does regarding gay rights.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

I don't imagine that criminals feel bullied by the church trying to take away their "right" to murder and steal. As you can see here, there are women who feel bullied by the church and I know plenty of gays who feel bullied by the churh as well. What you said in #1088 is a false equivalency, the gay rights issue is much closer to the truth. In both that and abortion the church is attempt to force a different set of beliefs on people and in doing so limit their rights.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

Also, as I noted before a strict interpretation of the bible doesn't actually oppose murder, so long it's of people who disagree with you. In fact going by See Noevo's own beliefs, I'd argue that it's the terrorists bombing abortion clinics who are the "true Catholics", not him.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

No, I do not feel bullied by the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church quite simply has no influence on me whatsoever. The main forces against abortion in this country are Protestant Fundamentalists. I am lucky enough to avoided being bullied by them directly, but I know many other women are not so fortunate.

My mother-in-law would likely feel differently, given how she was treated when she contracted hepatitis while pregnant with my husband. She was sent to the Mayo Clinic. The secular doctors wanted her to get an abortion, given the risk to the fetus. She didn't want to do that, so they referred her to the catholic hospital. The catholic hospital treated her, but refused anything with even the slightest risk to the baby, and treated her harshly because abortion had even been considered, even though it wasn't her that had considered it. They would not allow her to make any decisions without her husband present, which was difficult as he was a) in the military and b) deployed. It infuriated her. She made it through the pregnancy, and my husband was born about a month late and rather small, but he did fine. There was no birth vaccine for Hep B back then, but luckily he didn't contract it from her. (He recently got a blood test to confirm he is clear of the virus; he has O- blood and wants to be able to donate.)

Her second pregnancy was not as good. The baby died in utero, and the strict anti-abortion rules in South Dakota meant she couldn't find a doctor willing to end the pregnancy for her. They insisted she go through labor instead. Two months later, with the corpse of the fetus calcifying inside, she developed an infection and then they would finally remove it.

That's the kind of madness that that sort of thinking leads to -- where maintaining one's pious image is more important than actual human lives.

By Calli Arcale (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

Emma @1091: Totally agree on the weather. I didn't move here for it to be warm!

I was mostly thinking about our current trolls, but yes, not-johnny and his fellow traveler ... whose name currently escapes me (ALLCAPS) were especially irritating.

And then there is the hall of fame: she-who-must-not-be-named, also known as Thingy, and from way, way, way back in the day, coolr, who was my very first 9/11 troofer. Ah, memories.

By JustaTech (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

Hi there, little weasel, I was just reading an article and it got me thinking about you. Evidently, hospitals and health clinics have to have big heavy doors - which they hound people mercilessly to keep closed and locked - because of a perfectly reasonable concern that some lunatic might barge in and start shooting people or throwing bombs and setting fires. I think it's just horrible that we have murderous gangs like the Army of God, and their mealy mouthed supporters, who force doctors and nurses to deal with this nonsense for their own protection when they could be out saving lives and healing the sick.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

JustaTech@1109
You're thinking of THEO I believe. My vote goes to APV followed by zebra in close second. The others are so absurd as to be comical. APV and z-dog are dishonest and slippery and not particularly entertaining. I like when Keith Bell shows up. He does a mean Gish and it is an interesting exercise to deconstruct them (not to his credit, it's just the nature of his MO).

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

@JustaTech
I included the frequent name changer because he seems to keep popping back when we hope he's gone. I found his pretending-to-be-others and adolescent masturbation fixation (seriously, even my 15 year old son doesn't seem think about it that much, plus, once you're out of junior high, it's really not an insult...) to put him over the top when combined with the willful obtuseness displayed by most everyone on your list. This thread's pest at least seems to have matured past the age of 13, ya know?

By Emma Crew (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

I’ve been away most of the day (errands, golf, etc.) and have returned to scan the comments.

I’m wondering why anti-bully babe ann hasn’t given any response, let alone a substantive response, to my #1088.

I’m wondering why brainiac JGC hasn’t given any response, let alone a substantive response, to my lengthy #1026.

I’m wondering why going-out-of-his gourd gaist hasn’t given any response, let alone a substantive response, to my #1099.

Time for a late dinner.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

I'm wondering why See Noevo ihasnt given any response to any of my comments over the past couple days, let alone a substantive one. Could it be that he doesn't want to own that he's a bigoted misogynist or is he just playing don't feed the troll better than the minions?

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

Oops, I forgot to include a clever moniker for See Noevo in my last comment. How about sad sack See Noevo?

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

See, do you think it might be because ann, JGC, gaist, and the rest of us, just don't find you to be interesting?

Nah, you would never make such an observation: your ego won't allow it.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

To Bill Price #1117:

“See, do you think [the non-responses noted in #1114] might be because ann, JGC, gaist, and the rest of us, just don’t find you to be interesting? Nah, you would never make such an observation: your ego won’t allow it.”

Here’s my observation, Bill Price:
If ann, JGC, gaist, and the rest of you just don’t find me or my posts interesting, or OF interest, than why are there over 1,117 posts here?
While I have about 165 of those, it seems to me the majority of the other 953 posts are comments ABOUT my posts.

And if YOU find my comments so uninteresting (or perhaps so un-challenging or un-convicting?), then,
why are you, Bill Price, still posting comments about me, today, over two weeks after this thread started?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

Addendum to #1118:

I decided to do a little test, just of the last 30 comments (#1088 - #1117).
Six were by me, 24 were by others.
Of those 24 comments by others...
17 Comments (at least) were about me or my comments (71%)
7 Comments (at most) were NOT about me or my comments (29%).

I wouldn’t be surprised if similar percentages held for the full 953 comments by others here.

I point this out not as a matter of ego, but as a matter of truth (i.e. Is Bill Price #1117 telling the truth?).

By See Noevo (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

Is Bill Price #1117 telling the truth?

See, your #1119 shows that my conjecture about your ego, in #1117 or so, is right on.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

I’m wondering why going-out-of-his gourd gaist hasn’t given any response, let alone a substantive response, to my #1099.

You ignore evidence contrary to your argument, dismiss other people's opinions, belittle them change the goalposts when you feel your own words have forced you into a corner and then make your little victory dances when you think you've gotten away with it. You repeatedly misquote and mangle my words, change the question after I had answered it but insisted the answer stand as you had mangled it, and pretty much ignored or skirted the issue until your "Perhaps their protests are well-founded. But instead of trying to find out by rehashing what has, or may have, been said on the issue to this point, let’s start fresh.", implying my complaint had merit, only to continue flaunting your dishonest "score" the very next day.

I don't have my panties in a bunch, it's just that polite posts where I explained rationally why what you did was dishonest went ignored.

But you lost me with this. After had to explain, re-explain, plead and rave for the last over two hundred posts to get you to even promise you might apologize for your dishonesty and spreading lies when I, in addition to all the rest which should have been sufficient (even my first post explanatory post in #890 should have been sufficient) I had to offer to bribe you.

And what prompted you to question me? To gloat I hadn't replied, because that what it was. I was away for less than a day. With you in the very same post writing "’I've been away most of the day". Maybe I went golfing?

I had a nice long reply explaining my stance on abortion prepared, which even with your inane definition of abortion, showed I don't support all abortions, but you won't get it this time. Maybe later, if you start behaving like an adult, instead of a dishonest brat with an inflated sense of entitlement.

Instead, you'll get this answer.
If I have the power to deny anybody the abortion they seek, I have the power to define the term as I like. So, with abortion defined as "induced termination of pregnancy" like in my original answer, I would forbid it from any woman who was under the influence of intoxicants, wasn't coherent or seemed to be coerced into it against her will or better judgement.

There, I answered your question. Now apologize.

No, now, gaist, you should know that SN can't apologize.His ego problems won't allow it.

I'm not competent to diagnose emotional problems, particularly internetly, but I do have the experience to recognize typical narcissistic behaviors. Boy, does SN exhibit them, in spades.

(One of my sources of experience was a longterm marriage to a now ex-wife, eventually diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I learned a lot just by living with and observing her. I see mucho significant similarities.)

A narcissist must win—be better than, in his own mind—in any encounter, and anything goes, to achieve this end. Misrepresentation, goalpost shifting, outright lying, hidden redefinition of terms, playing "let's you and him fight"—they're all on the table, along with more that we've seen but I'm too tired to mention. What's not on the table is apologizing, or anything else that hints at weakness or error on his part.

At the end of the encounter, the narcissist must convince at least himself, and any others in sight, that he has won, that he has shown himself better than The Enemy™. Failure to win can be fatal, or nearly so. The two times (I know of) that my ex-wife unequivocably lost, she experienced long-term depression that was nearly fatal: shrinks tell me that this is expected. SN is fighting for his life, against us and against reality.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

"I’ve been away most of the day (errands, golf, etc.) and have returned to scan the comments.

I’m wondering why anti-bully babe ann hasn’t given any response, let alone a substantive response, to my #1088.

I’m wondering why brainiac JGC hasn’t given any response, let alone a substantive response, to my lengthy #1026.

I’m wondering why going-out-of-his gourd gaist hasn’t given any response, let alone a substantive response, to my #1099.

Time for a late dinner."

I'm wondering why you haven't replied to me for the last 500 comments. Maybe cause the questions are too hard to answer? You reply very selectively to people whenever you think you can somehow get the traction in the "debate" by twisting someone's words or shifting definitions. No wonder they stopped replying to you.

You remind me of the internet personnality G-man.

Poor little weasel, people are laughing because you so obviously have some kind of personality disorder. Be that as it may, even a classic borderline can shoot a doctor in the back as well as any antiabortion fanatic who ever picked up the brave man's pistol or the coward's sniper rifle. I bet you have some stories to tell.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

</killfile>

I point this out not as a matter of ego, but as a matter of truth

No, S.N. "point[s] this out" because it was a shiny new response to asshurt at Jason's. (Et seq.; this eventually devolved into the "See Noevo Clicker Counter," a triumph of petulance.)

Whatever, he might as well rummage around in the junk box.

I've mentioned the Gom Jabbar already, but I can't remember whether that was in reference to S.N. or the departed AH. The thing, though, is S.N.'s total reflexive indifference to notions of personhood or the "being" part of "human being."

"Who wouldn’t like to atone for the sins of themselves, and the world, if it could be done in a hammock with ropes, instead of on a Cross, with nails? On a green hilltop, instead of Golgotha, the Place of the Skulls? Isn’t that a comparatively comfortable, almost voluptuous Crucifixion to suffer for the sins of the world, Mr. Shannon?"*

Given S.N.'s sorely fυcked up "observant Jew" routine, I can scarcely imagine what his conception of the afterlife must be. However, given that it's plain that he venerates the syntax of the rule book most of all, I have a sense that it includes still "being S.N.," which would pretty much lead to the same sort of, ah, interpersonal problems with the other occupants of the "many rooms" or something.

But seriously, S.N. imagines that Jesus was crucified with the omniscience to personally endorse this shіt?

No, it's a product of the rather slow realization of existential horror. I mean, really, how did La valse à mille temps really turn into Carousel, and why? What is the point of going out of one's way to be the worst possible ambassador for the RCC imaginable?**

S.N. has conceded everything.*** He has taken refuge and comfort in the "reptilian complex," as is most evident in his forays into physics.

He clearly has a need that isn't being adequately met, at least by Disqustink. Leaving aside Canon law, "He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

* Where the f*ck is my one-act Iguana script?
** Once again, if only Lilady were here.
*** h[]tps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lszhnmoulU; argumentum ad Y–tubi-I-don't-give-a-rat's-ass-about-whomping-up-a-declension-or-case.

<killfile>

No, now, gaist, you should know that SN can’t apologize.His ego problems won’t allow it.

You're probably correct. But I don't really care.

Based on his "I think that in ALL situations no woman should be allowed a direct abortion, that is, where the abortion is willed as an end or a means to an end.", I'm imagining what his response would be to a woman who has once already attempted and continues to contemplate suicide because she can feel the child of her rapist kicking inside her and keeps reliving her torment because of it. "Tough it out. God likes you better that way."

^ That was such a bad unclosed <a> tags that it might not even matter. The two links are "at Jason’s" and “See Noevo Clicker Counter."

But I don’t really care.

Pssst, gaist! Hey, over here. Just between the two of us: you're not the only one that doesn't care. All of us, including SN, know that SN is evil, and nobody's going to be willing and able to do anything about it. Too bad for him.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 13 Aug 2015 #permalink

First, an aside from Merriam-Webster

See, I believe I’ve made it clear in previous posts that the distinction I make between ‘moral’ and ‘ethical’ codes of conduct is that moral codes arise to reflect presumed divinely-ordained obligations and proscriptions, while ethical codes arise to reflect observed consequence. ANY act can be justified as “moral” as long as the person engaging in those acts sincerely believes that they’re in accord with ‘god’s will’. That makes it an inherently inferior standard for societal normative values.

So, it is ethical to value the rights of one human being over the rights of another (and innocent and helpless) human being, to the point of killing the latter.

Yes, albeit the extent to which one can act is no independent of circumstance. But at any time when terminating a pregnancy might result in the death of a developed human being (i.e., a late term abortion post 23 weeks gestation) we’re speaking of circumstances where the termination is done to preserve the life or health of the mother. I’m aware of no ethical argument supporting a conclusion her right to life/health must be seen as inferior to any presumed rights of the child she would be carrying.
And at all stages of development where the developing zygote etc. doesn’t represent a human being terminating a pregnancy is an ethically neutral act, as far as I can see, impacting only one human being—the pregnant female.

Perhaps you mean a fertilized oocyte is A germ cell, I don’t know

See, just google ‘germ cell’.

So, an acceptable response to you could be: “Want the right answer on an ethical question? Read, say, the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Case Closed.

Well, given that there’s absolutely no reason to presume any answers to ethical questions in the Catechism of the Catholic Church are valid, no. You’ve asked a specific and narrow technical question: I’ve referred you to a peer-reviewed article that will answer your question more precisely and in greater detail than I could attempt in this forum. You’re just being lazy at this point (or more likely, trying not to have to deal with an answer that’s precise and in great detail).

You left out a *minimal* criteria? Imagine that. And the minimal criteria you’ve added is ‘observed to originate in the cortex.’

That’s correct.

M-W says “cortex” is “medical : the outer layer of an organ in the body and especially of the brain”

The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of neural tissue in human brain which divided into two along the brain’s sagittal plane the medial longitudinal fissure.

But your important minimal addition essentially seems to be
‘neural activity observed originate in the outer layer of the brain.’

And which is sustained and bilaterally symmetrical.

See story…

I’ve seen it, but fail to your point as I’m not asking the equivalent of “What property let the child recognize the man as his/her father?” but “What property made that man that child’s father?”

Growth is A property, ONE property, of living things

Yes, of ALL living things, including non-human ones. Clearly something more is necessary, or all living things are human beings and using antibiotics or fungicides is mass murder on an unimaginable scale.

A fertilized oocyte is *substantively different* from all other human cells in that its growing maturity is “recognizable” as, say, Daddy or Mommy, and not something that just, say, needs a trim (e.g. nose hair).

“Substantively different” isn’t synonymous with “a human being”.

I’ll add you to the list. Now I’m 8 for 8.

Except I don’t support abortion in all cases, See, and nowhere have I claimed to. For example, I would not support a late term abortion in any situation other than where it would not be necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother or where the delivery would result in a child that would be stillborn on delivery or which would not survive long after birth (anencephaly again). But the fact I would not support abortion in these cases doesn’t mean I don’t believe a woman has the right to seek an abortion even a late term one, in the absence of such medical indications, or that the presumed child’s rights must be given precedence over the right of the pregnant woman to control her own reproductive capacity.
A rational and ethical abortion policy lies somewhere between the extremes of “Never, ever, under any circumstance” and “Anytime, on demand”, but the issue is so polarized the discussion always appears to address only those two extremes.

I’m wondering why brainiac JGC hasn’t given any response, let alone a substantive response, to my lengthy #1026.

That would be because I have a life, See.

To gaist #1121:

“You ignore evidence contrary to your argument…”
Name just one instance.

“… dismiss other people’s opinions…”
IF I dismiss other people’s opinions I usually do so only after first showing why I think those opinions are wrong. I might well ignore or “dimiss” further postings of these wrong opinions after I’ve already stated my contrary opinion.

“… belittle them…”
Quite likely, when their big ideas are “small” and far smaller than they think they are. (Ref: M-W def #7 of small.)
And that’s…..OK.

“… change the goalposts…”
If “change the goalposts” means introducing greater precision and clarity to the argument, then, yes.

“I don’t have my panties in a bunch…”
You fooled me. How about “underwear”?

“After had to explain, re-explain, plead and rave for the last over two hundred posts to get you to …”
OK, then. You DO have your underwear in a bunch.

………………
“I had to offer to bribe you.”

You offered a “bribe” and I took it. [Per #1096:
Me: “I’ll recant and apologize in the future when you detail in the future precisely where you, if you had the power, would forbid abortion.”
You: “Like I told you in #903-904 and repeated in #914 already, I’ll elaborate once you’ve answered this:
In what situation no woman should be allowed an abortion, without exception and regardless of other circumstances? Quid Pro Quo.”]

In #1099, I gave you my quite comprehensive Quid [“I think that in ALL situations NO woman should be allowed a direct abortion…”]

Where’s your future and reciprocal Quo?

Oh, wait. Here it is:
“I would forbid [abortion] from any woman who was under the influence of intoxicants, wasn’t coherent or seemed to be coerced into it against her will or better judgement.”

So, it’s like how common sense, and I think common law, nullifies any contract where one of the parties is deemed not of right mind (e.g. intoxicated; incoherent; coerced).

It’s like you nobly nullifying granny’s contract with a shyster to cut her lawn for a $1,000,000, where granny signed when she was drunk or incoherent.
But you’d OK her signing the contract for the $1,000,000 mow where she wasn’t drunk or incoherent.

It's like you nobly OK'ing an abortion in the 9th month of a healthy, normal pregnancy, where the sober, "sane" mother freely wishes it.

“There, I answered your question. Now apologize.”

I’m glad we cleared that up.
You’re still in the 8 for 8.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

It’s like you nobly nullifying granny’s contract with a shyster to cut her lawn for a $1,000,000, where granny signed when she was drunk or incoherent.
But you’d OK her signing the contract for the $1,000,000 mow where she wasn’t drunk or incoherent.

It’s like you nobly OK’ing an abortion in the 9th month of a healthy, normal pregnancy, where the sober, “sane” mother freely wishes it.

You still can't help inventing what other people have said.

You'll get your quo-fix when you've grown up a bit, li'l See.

You’re still in the 8 for 8

And you're still a lying pitiful creep pretending to matter. You are still not tall enough to enter adult conversation.

See Noevo, I'd like you to take a look at 1 Kings 21. That's where King Ahab lied about someone for his own advantage. That's what you're doing now. Note his fate in the story. Think carefully about that.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

I might well ignore or “dimiss” further postings of these wrong opinions after I’ve already stated my contrary opinion.

Obviously, any opinion, data, fact, opinion or other assertion that's contrary to yours is necessarily wrong, reality to the contrary notwithstanding.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

If “change the goalposts” means introducing greater precision and clarity to the argument, then, yes.

"Change the goalposts" means, in your case (one of them, anyway) to attempt to redefine a crucial term, central to the discussion, so that it means something quite different. We recognize this by your smoke-blowing about "precision", "clarity" and "simplicity".

By Bill Price (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

It’s like you nobly OK’ing an abortion in the 9th month of a healthy, normal pregnancy, where the sober, “sane” mother freely wishes it.

Using the generally accepted, normal definition of 'abortion' rather than your attempt to hijack the word for an entirely different meaning, what's wrong with that?

How does this 9th-month termination of a healthy pregnancy differ from a Caesarian Section or induced vaginal delivery (again, we're using the real definition of 'abortion', not your abortion of a redefinition)?

By Bill Price (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

To Garou #1123:

“I’m wondering why you haven’t replied to me for the last 500 comments.”

You probably mean your #608.

MI Dawn gave a reasonably accurate reply: “… don’t wait for the report. Neither SH nor SN ever believe abortion is OK.”

And as I implied in #1130, if I dismiss other people’s opinions or not answer their questions, I usually do so only after first showing why I think those opinions are wrong or after answering the questions; I might well ignore or dismiss further postings of these wrong opinions or answered questions after I’ve already addressed them earlier or elsewhere.

But I’ll make an exception, just for you.
I would answer #608 questions as follows:

“To AH and See noevo, how would you even implement abortion into the current american law?”
See below. All answers assume I had the power to so implement.

“What would be the exceptions?”
For direct abortion, none.

“Would you allow pregnant women that have a life threatening condition to abort?”
For direct abortion, no. For INdirect abortion, see #1099, #207.

“Would you allow an exception for rape?”
No. Why should the innocent child resulting from rape be murdered?

“How would the law be enforced?”
By prosecuting transgressions, and with sentences that are generally given for murder. (I might start with the transgressors mentioned in #1102.)

“Would there be a time limit (in weeks) to abortion, or would it be never?”
Never.

You're welcome.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

[Cont'd from #1037]

And she looked puzzled for a second, but then beamed “You’re funny, Daddy!”
Then she giggled and laughed some more as Daddy again played the Creature from the Black Lagoon and chased her around the pond.

Then he threw her on the ground and raped her for the first time, but not for the last. When she was thirteen, her stomach began to swell and ache. So her mother took her to the hospital fearing she had a tumor.

After doctors revealed the girl was pregnant, her mother asked them to perform an abortion, but this is forbidden in the SN-USA unless the pregnancy has the right kind of life-threatening complications.

So the girl was taken to a shelter and her mother was imprisoned and accused of failing in her duty of care. A judge is considering a further charge of being an accomplice in the rape. And Daddy skipped town.

Isn't nature grand?

(Details lightly adapted from Pregnant 10-year-old Rape Victim Denied Abortion by Paraguayan Authorities.

To JGC #1129:

Me, mirroring back your statements:
“So, it is ethical to value the rights of one human being over the rights of another (and innocent and helpless) human being, to the point of killing the latter.”

You: “Yes, albeit …” Albeit blah, blah, blah.

Your answer is “Yes.” Your answer is “Yes, one person may IMPOSE her BELIEFS on another person TO THE POINT OF KILLING the other (and innocent and helpless) person.
..................
Me: “Perhaps you mean a fertilized oocyte is A germ cell, I don’t know.”

You: “See, just google ‘germ cell’.”

Why have you not answered the immediately following question of mine? It was “But EVEN IF a fertilized oocyte is only one type of germ cell, have any OTHER types of germ cells been observed to grow naturally into what even a child would recognize as a human being?”

Why didn’t you answer this very simple question?
...................
“You’ve asked a specific and narrow technical question: I’ve referred you to a peer-reviewed article that will answer your question more precisely and in greater detail than I could attempt in this forum. You’re just being lazy at this point (or more likely, trying not to have to deal with an answer that’s precise and in great detail).”

The answer is “Yes.” Yes, by “bilaterally” synchronous, you mean synchronous between the two sides of the brain.
[“First, intermittent electroencephalograpic bursts in BOTH CEREBRAL HEMISPHERES are first seen at 20 weeks gestation; they become sustained at 22 weeks and BILATERALLY SYNCHRONOUS at 26 to 27 weeks.” http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/anand/]

So, JGC, if bilateral synchronicity is YOUR MINIMUM standard for brainwaves to be “characteristic human” brain waves, the “characteristic human neural activity” which defines “human being” for you, then, why would Jessie be considered human by you? Jessie doesn’t have two hemispheres.
http://hemifoundation.homestead.com/jessiesstory.html
..........................
Me: “You left out a *minimal* criteria? Imagine that. And the minimal criteria you’ve added is ‘observed to originate in the cortex.’ “

You: “That’s correct… The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of neural tissue in human brain which divided into two along the brain’s sagittal plane the medial longitudinal fissure.”

And if a human being doesn’t have an outer layer of neural tissue in human brain which divided into two along the brain’s sagittal plane the medial longitudinal fissure, she’s not a human being.

Got it. The rest of you better check your heads. [JGC has apparently “checked out.”]
....................

Me: “See story [in #1022].”

You: “I’ve seen it, but fail to your point as I’m not asking the equivalent of “What property let the child recognize the man as his/her father?” but “What property made that man that child’s father?””

Then you’re going to be held back a year and remain in Pre-K.
Recall my multiple statements like “The fertilized oocyte possesses the property of naturally growing to be what is commonly RECOGNIZED as a human being, a person. “Recognized”, as in acknowledged, in terms of APPEARANCE, by everyone, even by little children.”

I’ll let the Kindergartners answer.
Kids, what’s the meaning of this story? Anyone? Anyone? Can a certain something be that certain something EVEN IF you don’t right now RECOGNIZE it as that certain something? Anyone? Anyone?
YES. Suzy, what do you think?
“I think, like, yes, a certain something could be that certain something EVEN IF I don’t right now RECOGNIZE it as that certain something.
Like, one time my Daddy showed me little fish at the pond but I said they weren’t little fish because they didn’t LOOK like little fish but then later he showed me those same things grown up a little bit and then I knew that they were fish all along even though I didn’t recognize them as fish before!” [Ref. #1037.]

Very good, Suzy! You’re exactly right.
And remember to help your little brother JGC with his homework.
...................
Me: “Growth is A property, ONE property, of living things.”

You: “Yes, of ALL living things, including non-human ones. Clearly something more is necessary, or all living things are human beings and using antibiotics or fungicides is mass murder on an unimaginable scale.”

Maybe you can straighten out biology professor PZ Meyers. See his statements and my comment at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/08/11/christians-can-get-awfull…
...................
Me: “I’ll add you to the list. Now I’m 8 for 8.”

You: “Except I don’t support abortion in all cases… For example, I would not support a late term abortion in any situation other than where… But the fact I would not support abortion in these cases doesn’t mean I don’t believe a woman has the right to seek an abortion even a late term one, in the absence of such medical indications, or that the presumed child’s rights must be given precedence over the right of the pregnant woman to control her own reproductive capacity…”

And although you never responded to my question to you in #1000 [“Hypothetically, assuming YOU had the power, would YOU forbid the abortion? On what basis would you forbid or not forbid?”],
I’ll take the above as a No – You would never forbid an abortion the mother wanted.

And I’ll keep you in the 8 for 8.
[It’s the only ethical thing to do.]

By See Noevo (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

To JGC #1129 (take 2):

Me, mirroring back your statements:
“So, it is ethical to value the rights of one human being over the rights of another (and innocent and helpless) human being, to the point of killing the latter.”

You: “Yes, albeit …” Albeit blah, blah, blah.

Your answer is “Yes.” Your answer is “Yes, one person may IMPOSE her BELIEFS on another person TO THE POINT OF KILLING the other (and innocent and helpless) person.
..................
Me: “Perhaps you mean a fertilized oocyte is A germ cell, I don’t know.”

You: “See, just google ‘germ cell’.”

Why have you not answered the immediately following question of mine? It was “But EVEN IF a fertilized oocyte is only one type of germ cell, have any OTHER types of germ cells been observed to grow naturally into what even a child would recognize as a human being?”

Why didn’t you answer this very simple question?
...................
“You’ve asked a specific and narrow technical question: I’ve referred you to a peer-reviewed article that will answer your question more precisely and in greater detail than I could attempt in this forum. You’re just being lazy at this point (or more likely, trying not to have to deal with an answer that’s precise and in great detail).”

The answer is “Yes.” Yes, by “bilaterally” synchronous, you mean synchronous between the two sides of the brain.
[“First, intermittent electroencephalograpic bursts in BOTH CEREBRAL HEMISPHERES are first seen at 20 weeks gestation; they become sustained at 22 weeks and BILATERALLY SYNCHRONOUS at 26 to 27 weeks.” http://www.cirp.org/library/pain/anand/]

So, JGC, if bilateral synchronicity is YOUR MINIMUM standard for brainwaves to be “characteristic human” brain waves, the “characteristic human neural activity” which defines “human being” for you, then, why would Jessie be considered human by you? Jessie doesn’t have two hemispheres (see link at #902.).
..........................
Me: “You left out a *minimal* criteria? Imagine that. And the minimal criteria you’ve added is ‘observed to originate in the cortex.’ “

You: “That’s correct… The cerebral cortex is the outer layer of neural tissue in human brain which divided into two along the brain’s sagittal plane the medial longitudinal fissure.”

And if a human being doesn’t have an outer layer of neural tissue in human brain which divided into two along the brain’s sagittal plane the medial longitudinal fissure, she’s not a human being.

Got it. The rest of you better check your heads. [JGC has apparently “checked out.”]
....................

Me: “See story [in #1022].”

You: “I’ve seen it, but fail to your point as I’m not asking the equivalent of “What property let the child recognize the man as his/her father?” but “What property made that man that child’s father?””

Then you’re going to be held back a year and remain in Pre-K.
Recall my multiple statements like “The fertilized oocyte possesses the property of naturally growing to be what is commonly RECOGNIZED as a human being, a person. “Recognized”, as in acknowledged, in terms of APPEARANCE, by everyone, even by little children.”

I’ll let the Kindergartners answer.
Kids, what’s the meaning of this story? Anyone? Anyone? Can a certain something be that certain something EVEN IF you don’t right now RECOGNIZE it as that certain something? Anyone? Anyone?
YES. Suzy, what do you think?
“I think, like, yes, a certain something could be that certain something EVEN IF I don’t right now RECOGNIZE it as that certain something.
Like, one time my Daddy showed me little fish at the pond but I said they weren’t little fish because they didn’t LOOK like little fish but then later he showed me those same things grown up a little bit and then I knew that they were fish all along even though I didn’t recognize them as fish before!” [Ref. #1037.]

Very good, Suzy! You’re exactly right.
And remember to help your little brother JGC with his homework.
...................
Me: “Growth is A property, ONE property, of living things.”

You: “Yes, of ALL living things, including non-human ones. Clearly something more is necessary, or all living things are human beings and using antibiotics or fungicides is mass murder on an unimaginable scale.”

Maybe you can straighten out biology professor PZ Meyers. See his statements and my comment at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/08/11/christians-can-get-awfull…
...................
Me: “I’ll add you to the list. Now I’m 8 for 8.”

You: “Except I don’t support abortion in all cases… For example, I would not support a late term abortion in any situation other than where… But the fact I would not support abortion in these cases doesn’t mean I don’t believe a woman has the right to seek an abortion even a late term one, in the absence of such medical indications, or that the presumed child’s rights must be given precedence over the right of the pregnant woman to control her own reproductive capacity…”

And although you never responded to my question to you in #1000 [“Hypothetically, assuming YOU had the power, would YOU forbid the abortion? On what basis would you forbid or not forbid?”],
I’ll take the above as a No – You would never forbid an abortion the mother wanted.

And I’ll keep you in the 8 for 8.
[It’s the only ethical thing to do.]

By See Noevo (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

The story of Tamesha Means and her miscarriage three years ago, if it happened the way her lawyers claim it did, is truly awful: Means was 18 weeks pregnant when her water broke and she was rushed to a hospital in Muskegon, Mich. The fetus wasn’t viable, and the pregnancy — Means’ third — was doomed.

But doctors at the hospital, part of the Catholic healthcare network known as Mercy Health Partners, didn’t tell her that, Means’ lawyers say. Instead of the normal course of treatment — inducing labor and terminating the pregnancy to stave off potentially risky complications — Means was allegedly kept in the dark about her condition, given painkillers, and sent home.

Bleeding and wracked with pain, she returned to Mercy twice over the next day or so and received more or less the same response, her lawyers claim. Just as she was about to be sent home a third time, by now feverish from a severe infection, she began to deliver. The baby died.

The case has received an enormous amount of attention because of who Means’ attorneys at the American Civil Liberties Union chose to sue last November: not her doctors or the hospital but the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Means’ lawyers claim that she was subjected to dangerously substandard treatment, that her own health was placed in peril, and that she was deprived of information about her condition because of rules issued by the bishops conference that govern all Catholic health care in the U.S. The rules — which Mercy and its staff are required to follow — prohibit abortion, and as a result, according to Means’ lawyers, doctors would not give up on the pregnancy.

More here.

The case is currently on appeal.

[Cont'd from #1038]

“I think, like, yes, a certain something could be that certain something EVEN IF I don’t right now RECOGNIZE it as that certain something."

OK. But does that mean that EVERYTHING you don't RECOGNIZE as a certain something IS a certain something? For example, can the unrecognizability of something be used as proof that it IS that something?

Suzy: "No, of course not. In order to prove that an unrecognizable certain something IS that certain something, you have to identify the properties that make it the certain something you have in mind."

Very good, Suzy! You’re exactly right.
And remember to help your little brother SN with his homework.

^^Sorry, #1138.

Worldwide, some 5 million women are hospitalized each year for treatment of abortion-related complications such as hemorrhage and sepsis, and abortion-related deaths leave 220,000 children motherless.4,5 The main causes of death from unsafe abortion are hemorrhage, infection, sepsis, genital trauma, and necrotic bowel.1 Data on nonfatal long-term health complications are poor, but those documented include poor wound healing, infertility, consequences of internal organ injury (urinary and stool incontinence from vesicovaginal or rectovaginal fistulas), and bowel resections. Other unmeasurable consequences of unsafe abortion include loss of productivity and psychologic damage.

[snip]

Abortion laws have a spectrum of restrictiveness. Nations may allow abortions based on saving the mother’s life, preserving physical and mental health, and socioeconomic grounds, or may be completely unrestrictive (Figure 2). Data indicate an association between unsafe abortion and restrictive abortion laws. The median rate of unsafe abortions in the 82 countries with the most restrictive abortion laws is up to 23 of 1000 women compared with 2 of 1000 in nations that allow abortions.4 Abortion-related deaths are more frequent in countries with more restrictive abortion laws (34 deaths per 100,000 childbirths) than in countries with less restrictive laws (1 or fewer per 100,000 childbirths).1

The same correlation appears when a given country tightens or relaxes its abortion law. In Romania, for example, where abortion was available upon request until 1966, the abortion mortality ratio was 20 per 100,000 live births in 1960. New legal restrictions were imposed in 1966, and by 1989 the ratio reached 148 deaths per 100,000 live births. The restrictions were reversed in 1989, and within a year the ratio dropped to 68 of 100,000 live births; by 2002 it was as low as 9 deaths per 100,000 births (Figure 3). Similarly, in South Africa, after abortion became legal and available on request in 1997, abortion-related infection decreased by 52%, and the abortion mortality ratio from 1998 to 2001 dropped by 91% from its 1994 level.6

Less restrictive abortion laws do not appear to entail more abortions overall. The world’s lowest abortion rates are in Europe, where abortion is legal and widely available but contraceptive use is high; in Belgium, Germany, and the Netherlands, the rate is below 10 per 1000 women aged 15 to 44 years. In contrast, in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, where abortion laws are the most restrictive and contraceptive use is lower, the rates range from the mid-20s to 39 per 1000 women.3

More at link.

The Catholic Church in Rome made the extraordinary admission yesterday that it is aware priests from at least 23 countries have been sexually abusing nuns.

Most of the abuse has occurred in Africa, where priests vowed to celibacy, who previously sought out prostitutes, have preyed on nuns to avoid contracting the Aids virus.

Confidential Vatican reports obtained by the National Catholic Reporter, a weekly magazine in the US, have revealed that members of the Catholic clergy have been exploiting their financial and spiritual authority to gain sexual favours from nuns, particularly those from the Third World who are more likely to be culturally conditioned to be subservient to men.

"Submitting to coercion is partly understandable, partly cowardince." -- SN

The reports, some of which are recent and some of which have been in circulation for at least seven years, said that such priests had demanded sex in exchange for favours, such as certification to work in a given diocese.

In extreme instances, the priests had made nuns pregnant and then encouraged them to have abortions.

Link.

- See more at: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/camelswithhammers/2011/02/vatican-confirms…

@see Noveo

How much?

How much do THEY pay you to roam and troll the way you do?

See Noevo@1136

...wrong opinions...

I was under the impression that opinions couldn't be wrong. Anyway, here's your bible quote for the day.

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.

Sorry ladies, See Noevo wins by default.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

No matter one’s stance on contraception and abortion, most people feel sympathetic for a 9-year-old rape victim who is impregnated with twins by her step father, and is forced to undergo an abortion to save her life.

Something something why should innocent child die just because rapist something something.

The Catholic Church, however, excommunicated those who helped rescue her.

In 2009, a 9 year old in Brazil had to have an emergency abortion after her mother brought her to the hospital for complaining about severe stomach pains and discovered the girl was four months pregnant. But after the procedure, instead of embracing the victim and offering to help the family, the Catholic Church excommunicated the doctor who performed the abortion and the girl’s mother.

The Church did not excommunicate the rapist:

From Church excommunicates doctor and mother of 9-year-old rape victim, but not the man who raped her

But wait. There's more:

An Ontario woman who was repeatedly raped by a Roman Catholic priest while she was a girl has received what is believed to be the largest individual settlement in a sexual abuse case in Canada — $2 million.

The victim, Lou Ann Soontiens, was in grade school when the abuse began at the hands of Rev. Charles Sylvestre. It continued for seven years.

Soontiens testified during Sylvestre's trial that at the age of 14 she was impregnated by the priest and that he arranged a botched abortion. She had to be rushed to hospital for emergency medical care.

Hence the old saying "A 14-year-old girl being coerced is as cowardly as a pregnant nun."

Soontiens was one of nearly 70 young female victims of Sylvestre who came forward.

Settlements have been reached with more than 50 victims.

^^Those two stories offer a preview of what kind of stories there would be more of when SN succeeded in making his views about abortion mandatory for everyone under all circumstances. And not just in the Church. My point is more that it will never stop happening anywhere, for as long as unwanted pregnancies continue to occur. Access to contraception is the answer.

SN just wants death.

But on a happier note:

The Pope orders Catholic priests to bestow a full pardon on women who have had an abortion and the doctors who performed them

Pope Francis has ordered Roman Catholic priests to bestow a full pardon on women who have committed a mortal sin by having an abortion.

Next year, both women who have had abortions, and doctors that have performed them, will be able to seek absolution, as part of a special Holy Year of Mercy decreed by the pope.

In the Catholic Church, abortion is considered one of the gravest sins and results in automatic excommunication. It can only be forgiven in certain special circumstances, by high-ranking clergy or by making a pilgrimage to Rome during a Holy Year.

But in a gesture of reconciliation the pope is for the first time to send ordinary priests as ‘missionaries of mercy’ all over the world with special powers to forgive even the most serious sins.

One of the organisers of the Jubilee Year Monsignor Rino Fisichella told a press conference that this included also abortion.

He said the pope meant the gesture ‘as a concrete sign that a priest must be a man of mercy and close to all.’

Link.

Details lightly adapted from Pregnant 10-year-old Rape Victim Denied Abortion by Paraguayan Authorities.

Fortunately for S.N., such things could never have happened to his wife or daughter, given that he's effectively conceded that no such people exist.

It makes for quite the Gedankenexperiment, though.

An Ontario woman who was repeatedly raped by a Roman Catholic priest while she was a girl has received what is believed to be the largest individual settlement in a sexual abuse case in Canada — $2 million.

Hey, at least the Church promptly took full responsibility for the matter.

Oh, wait, they effectively harassed Soontiens until days before the civil trial.

Congratulations, little weasel! Your pilgarlic arguments have convinced me that I, too, should join you in your murderous little anti abortion crusade. I am in a quandary, of course, over how best to proceed: do I just go to one of your network churches and ask for a gun and a bomb, or do I need a referral from the Army of God and its allied terror organizations?

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1141:

My Suzy: “I think, like, yes, a certain something could be that certain something EVEN IF I don’t right now RECOGNIZE it as that certain something.”

You: “OK. But does that mean that EVERYTHING you don’t RECOGNIZE as a certain something IS a certain something?”

Sure, if you believe a Volkswagen IS (or could be) a people, and not just a people’s wagon. What a silly question.

“For example, can the unrecognizability of something be used as proof that it IS that something?”

I’m not sure which question is sillier.

ann’s Suzy: “No, of course not. In order to prove that an unrecognizable certain something IS that certain something, you have to identify the properties that make it the certain something you have in mind.”

And then the teacher said, “Suzy, I’m going to have to send you back to Pre-K until you can demonstrate that you can think clearly.”
.....................
Epilogue:
Later, Suzy’s lack of clarity was found to be due to a brain anomaly, which in turn was found to be due to Suzy being the product of incest. A government agency’s head, named “ann”, had Suzy terminated. Because ann had the power to do so,
in a fantasy world, where not all things work the way they do in our world…
yet.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

Congratulations, little weasel! Your pilgarlic arguments have convinced me that I, too, should join you in your murderous little anti abortion crusade. I am in a quandary, of course, over how best to proceed: do I just go to one of your network churches and ask for a gun and a bomb, or do I need a referral from the Army of God and its allied terror organizations?

/* in case it matters, I absentmindedly clicked another user's email address in this community browser for comment #1153. Naturally, I would prefer that the previous comment be deleted and replaced with this properly signed comment */

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

More importantly, if the following story is at all accurate, then, maybe in the future, ann would be OK (i.e. would not forbid if she had the power to forbid) “terminating” a significant portion of, say, Kentucky’s population.

Kids, what’s the meaning of this story? Anyone? Anyone?

Suzy: "It's a satire, obviously."

Very good, Suzy! That's exactly right. You're a smart girl. But what if someone didn't RECOGNIZE that it was a satire? Would it then be a real news story? Can a certain something be that certain something BECAUSE you don’t right now RECOGNIZE it as that certain something? Anyone? Anyone?

Suzy: "No, it would still obviously be a satire."

Very good.

This next one's a little bit of a curve ball. But just bear with me. What would you say to someone who seriously argued that you can't have an incest exception for abortions because incest is such an endemic problem that you just have to ignore it?

Suzy: "Are you effing kidding me?"

Sadly, no.

Suzy: "No, no, you misunderstood me. That's what I'd say."

Oh. In that case: Excellent, Suzy. Well done.

More importantly, if the following story is at all accurate, then, maybe in the future, ann would be OK (i.e. would not forbid if she had the power to forbid) “terminating” a significant portion of, say, Kentucky’s population.
More importantly still, See Noevo is ok with forcing 9 year old rape victims to carry life threatening pregnancies to term. And I don't even need to twist his words to come to that conclusion (as he has done with ann's here).

See Noevo, do you maybe see how your church comes off looking like the bad guy in the this case? Maybe ann wasn't clear enough. The doctor and mother who saved the little girl's life, were excommunicated. The pedophile who, and I can't stress this enough, raped a 9 year girl was not excommunicated. #justice

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

Blockquote fail. In case it wasn't obvious the first paragraph of #1156 is See Noevo quoted from #1151.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

ann@1155
For extra credit: why might someone fail to recognize that article as satire?

Suzy: Because sarcastic tone is difficult to convey in writting. In the era of the internet it is so easy to convey any opinion, regardless of how absurd that it is nigh impossible to differentiate between a geniunely held, if ridiculous, belief and satire.

Me: Very well thought out answer Suzy. Unfortunately, you give See Noevo too much credit. The correct answer is simply a failure in basic reading comprehension. See the article tags at the bottom.

(it was a trick question all along; that's why it was only for extra credit)

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

@#1150 --

Thanks. I forgot the link for that one.

It's evidently the tip of the iceberg, too:

Females are more likely to be attractive to clergy because the majority of priests are heterosexual — but some are psychologically and sexually immature, says former priest-turned-lawyer Patrick Wall.

“If they’re going to explore sexually, they’re going to explore with a little girl,” said Wall, a California-based expert on Catholic clergy abuse who now works with victims.

Wall’s perspective on the degree of female abuse is unique. He was a Benedictine monk for 12 years, working as a “fixer” dispatched to tidy up messy sexual problems of priests and laymen at troubled parishes and schools. He said when a girl required surgery after rape, the code was that she needed a “hernia” operation.

In a bizarre twinning, he counselled accused priests and heard confessions from traumatized victims. He also worked on cases where priests impregnated girls then procured abortions for them.

“That is so prevalent, it happens all the time,” he said of the abortion runs, which in part accounts for his belief that teenaged girls are the silent majority of priest-related sexual abuse.

But of course, as SN so rightly points out @#1153, there are also his own bizarre dystopian fantasies to consider. So, you know. Two sides to every story.

@ann #1137

Nice twist on SN's fan fiction, I lolled.

@SN #1136

Well, congratulations! You've officially announced that you're a fucking asshole! And not a small one, mind you, you make Stephen Harper look like a moderated leftist when compared to you.

So yeah, ann, MI dawn, you were right, SN just really likes women to suffer for some reason. Probably gets off to it. Wouldn't be surprised if he masturbated to news stories about 11 years old girls being impregnated by the clergy to subsequently be forced to bring the pregnancy to term.

Sorry I forgot about this:

Capitalizing “Black” and “White” was still AP style, last I checked.

Really?

I don’t recall it’s ever having been. But as of 2003, at least, it wasn’t.

Yah, I just dusted off by 2009 Stylebook* and my recollection is nowhere to be found. I do think the caps are defensible, though – or at least superior to scare quotes – in the context of marking a purely societal convention. S.N.'s actually having been making such a distinction strikes me as very unlikely.

* Most poorly organized manual I've ever seen, and that's saying something.

I have long heard that Planned Parenthood facilities are disproportionately represented in low income minority areas.
[While the article linked below gives more data on this, I decided to look at any area I was particularly familiar wit - the Philadelphia area.
In the Philly area, PP has 8 facilities, 5 of which are in areas with a minority population % significantly higher than national averages.
Of the 8 PP facilities, only 3 perform abortions. All 3 are in those areas with a minority population % significantly higher than national averages.]

The article notes something especially remarkable:
“Critics of these findings suggest that abortion providers are simply going where the need is — low-income, which are typically minority-dominant, areas. But abortion advocates also claim that promoting birth control in these areas helps to reduce abortions and unplanned pregnancies. And that has not happened. In 2011, the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute published the findings of a study comparing rates of unintended pregnancy and abortion in 1994 and 2006. Among women with incomes below the federal poverty line, the unintended pregnancy rate rose by 50 percent. They also experienced an increase in abortions. Women with incomes at or above 200 percent of the poverty line saw decreases in both of these categories. Conclusion: The results were exactly the opposite of what abortion providers claimed was the goal.”

Maybe this shouldn’t be all that surprising. Because the article also provides these quotes:

“The lack of balance between the birth-rate of the “unfit” and the “fit” [is] admittedly the greatest present menace to the civilization. . . . The example of the inferior classes, the fertility of the feeble-minded, the mentally defective, the poverty-stricken, should not be held up for emulation to the mentally and physically fit, and therefore less fertile, parents of the educated and well-to-do classes. On the contrary, the most urgent problem to-day is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective.”

“Feeble-mindedness in one generation becomes pauperism or insanity in the next. There is every indication that feeble-mindedness in its protean forms is on the increase, that it has leaped the barriers, and that there is truly, as some of the scientific eugenists [sic] have pointed out, a feeble-minded peril to future generations – unless the feeble-minded are prevented from reproducing their kind. To meet this emergency is the immediate and peremptory duty of every State and of all communities.”

“The mass of significant Negroes still breed carelessly and disastrously with the result that the increase among Negroes . . . is [in] that portion of the population least intelligent and fit.”
“Finally perish! That is the exact alternative that confronts the white race. . . . If white civilization goes down, the white race is irretrievably ruined. It will be swamped by the triumphant colored races, who will eliminate the white man by elimination or absorption. . . . We now know that men are not and never will be equal.”

“Just as we isolate bacterial invasions, and starve out the bacteria, by limiting the area and amount of their food supply, so we can compel an inferior race to remain in its native habitat.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422557/planned-parenthood-ben-car…

P.S.
Hey, what’s the latest with the “BlackLivesMatter” campaign?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

Your answer is “Yes.” Your answer is “Yes, one person may IMPOSE her BELIEFS on another person TO THE POINT OF KILLING the other (and innocent and helpless) person.
Wait a minute--we're not discussing when a person may impose their beleifs on another person, See. Stop addressing strawmen.

Why didn’t you answer this very simple question?

Because learning whatthe term "germ cell" means will have already made this clear.

So, JGC, if bilateral synchronicity is YOUR MINIMUM standard for brainwaves to be “characteristic human” brain waves, the “characteristic human neural activity” which defines “human being” for you, then, why would Jessie be considered human by you? Jessie doesn’t have two hemispheres (see link at #902.).

See, i've identified criteria which would indicates the point in development when a fetus cannot with confidence be said to not yet represent a person. As jessie isn't a developing fetus I don't understnad why you'd think anyone would argue the criteria apply to her.

And if a human being doesn’t have an outer layer of neural tissue in human brain which divided into two along the brain’s sagittal plane the medial longitudinal fissure, she’s not a human being.
Is that now your position, See?

Recall my multiple statements like “The fertilized oocyte possesses the property of naturally growing to be what is commonly RECOGNIZED as a human being, a person. “Recognized”, as in acknowledged, in terms of APPEARANCE, by everyone, even by little children.”

Yes, i recall your argument from potential, and my explanation of how arguments from portential are insufficient to demonstrate the oocyte represents a human being rather than something which is not a human being but that may with additional development become one at a later point in time.

I think, like, yes, a certain something could be that certain something EVEN IF I don’t right now RECOGNIZE it as that certain soming.

How does one determine when something unrecognized is in fact a "certain" something? That's what you've been asked to explain, but you seem now to be arguing that we cannot tell whether or not an oocyte etc. is a human being or nothing becuase even if it was we wouldn't be able to recognize it.
I fail to understand the relevance of the PZ Meyers digression.
As to would I forbid a woman fro terminating a pregnancy, even if I had the power I don't believe I would have the right to do so. I wouldn't support her choice to do so, but I couldn't in good conscience act to prevent her from doing so.

And speaking of sports, word on the street is that gay Michael Sam wants an abortion… of pro football.

The abortion is necessary to save the health of the… guy. And yes, the michael’s health includes his mental health.

Y'know, you forget to turn back on the killfile after ensuring that recent additions were correct, and you run into something below this level of ideation.*

Show it to your priest, S.N., and get him to post an endorsement here. It's not like you're closeted and golf for the caddies or anything.

* Memorialized here. This one's going to follow you, Peaches.

“Hey now, all you sinners
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you lovers
Put your lights on, put your lights on

Hey now, all you killers
Put your lights on, put your lights on
Hey now, all you children
Leave your lights on, you better leave your lights on

'Cause there's a monster living under my bed
Whispering in my ear
There's an angel, with a hand on my head
She say I've got nothing to fear

There's a darkness livin’ deep in my soul
I still got a purpose to serve
So let your light shine, deep into my hole
God, don't let me lose my nerve, don't let me lose my nerve

Hey now, hey now, hey now, hey now
Wo oh hey now, hey now, hey now, hey now

Hey now, all you sinners
Put your lights on, put your lights on

'Cause there's a monster living under my bed
Whispering in my ear
There's an angel, with a hand on my head
She say I've got nothing to fear
She say La ill aha ill allah
We all shine like stars
Then we fade away.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCBS5EtszYI

By See Noevo (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noreality #1138:

Maybe you can straighten out biology professor PZ Meyers. See his statements and my comment at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/08/11/christians-can-get-awfully-reductionist-when-it-suits-them/

Good old Prof PZ Meyers. I wonder how he and PZ Myers are getting along.

The old, almost forgotten Scienceblogs version of Pharyngula still has bannation capability, IIRC. So maybe either Prof Meyers can get straightened out with respect to our common narcissist* by having Prof Myers flip the Ban switch.
----------------------------------------------------
* Make no mistake, narcissists are pretty common, in multiple senses: they're not hard to find, and they're not the elite their egos demand them seem.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 14 Aug 2015 #permalink

She say La ill aha ill allah

I'm going with "S.N. can't hold his liquor."

And speaking of sports, word on the street is that gay Michael Sam wants an abortion… of pro football.

The abortion is necessary to save the health of the… guy. And yes, the michael’s health includes his mental health.

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/eye-on-football/25270305/michael-sam-walks…

You have some serious issues, little lying creep.

I can sort of understand why you would misquote or invent words in a discussion if you were that desperate to score "points", rather than win arguments, but imagining people in the news are talking to you about abortion sounds like a dangerous situation I would recommend seeing a mental care worker for.

But that's just my two cents, you're of course free to revel in your delusions and mental confusion. The bonus is, I wouldn't let you have an abortion.

ann’s Suzy: “No, of course not. In order to prove that an unrecognizable certain something IS that certain something, you have to identify the properties that make it the certain something you have in mind.”

And then the teacher said, “Suzy, I’m going to have to send you back to Pre-K until you can demonstrate that you can think clearly.”

See Noevo the little lying creep sure does remind me of this (fictional) teacher: http://message.snopes.com/humor/graphics/hilliker.gif

^ Silly me; see, e.g., No. 29 here:

Everlast, the rapper became a Muslim in 1996, after converting from Catholicism.

Anyway,

Buenas noches.

How many?

“You ignore evidence contrary to your argument…”
Name just one instance

Your insistance that banning abortions and contraceptives would reduce mortality, with just ann alone providing sufficient evidence to the contrary on this thread.

Buenas noches.

And buenos nachos for you, o self-blinded one.
-----------------------------------
Never forget, SN, that you are doing a top-notch job of fulfilling your life's purpose, if that purpose is to be a bad example.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

Your daily dose of bible misogyny. Those priests were only following scripture.

Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

My Google-fu isn't what I would like it to be, so it took most of the night. Here, finally is the rest of my #1176.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

Speaking of logic, common sense, and observation:

@#1163 --

Would that be the same Ben Carson who doesn't deny using tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research?

I think that from a common-sense perspective, you'd have to say he's prone to misrepresenting facts for political reasons.

@#1164 --

Wait.

Is your point that Priests Commit No More Abuse than Other Males?

Nobody has been arguing otherwise. So that would be so completely illogical, senseless, and unobservant that it's kind of hard to believe. But since I can't imagine what other point you think you're making:

Granted. The principle characteristic of all men who sexually abuse children is that they have unsupervised access to children -- ie, caretakers, clergy, teachers, etc.

Two wrongs don't make a right, though. That's just basic logic.

And as you may have observed, I already said:

The point of all those stories was that strict proscriptions on abortion don't do anything to prevent people from seeking and/or having them.

If abortion was illegal in all circumstances, there would be more stories about women like Tamesha Means, except that many of them would die. There would also be more stories about children like the ten-year-old in Paraguay and the nine-year-old in Brazil, except that many of them would die.

There would not be fewer abortions.

Think it can't happen here? Ask Dawn Hill:

Childhood should be a happy and carefree time for all our children, but my mother found her new husband, my stepfather, much more important. He forever took the joy away from my life when I was just 11 years old: He began molesting me and continued until he began raping me when I was 13.

Mr. Mourdock last night said: “I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen.”

I became pregnant, contrary to the “scientific theories” of many modern Republicans. Not only was the experience loathsome and painful, it was also impossible for me to deal with or talk about because of the times: in the fifties, abortion was illegal. Illegal in the same way the Republican Party platform states it wants to make abortion now by constitutional amendment and just as Presidential candidate Mitt Romney has suggested casually he would “be delighted” to return to.

Please, take a moment to travel back to the fifties with me.

My mother took me to Mexico, where anyone could get an abortion for a price. I have blocked out many memories associated with this entire experience, but I remember the pain. Illegal abortions are not the simple safe vacuum procedure used today by legal abortion providers. Oh, no: They were a “dilatation and curettage.”

This means that my cervix was mechanically opened by insertion of larger and larger metal “dilators” until it was opened enough to get a sort of sharpened spoon inside my 13-year-old uterus, while strangers looked at my exposed parts that were theretofore called “private.”

It was cold and dirty in the room, and then the true torture started. They shoved this curette into me and scraped away the entire lining of my uterus with the sharp side. I screamed the entire time even though no one had seen so much as a tear out of me before this moment because I had developed a stony stoicism to protect my mind from the molestation.

This pain was, however, like nothing I’ve ever felt before or since. Can you imagine what happened to those women and girls who couldn’t even get this barbaric abortion? They stuck wire hangers into themselves and bled to death or suffered other horrible complications. Then, too, I also got a terrible infection from the filthy conditions.

Proscriptions on abortion, whether religious or legal, don't reduce its prevalence or incidence. And limiting access to birth control increases them. That's why Catholic women are as likely to have abortions as women in the general population, and 29% more likely than Protestant women.

You just want death.

@#1165 --

The only way that story is even tangentially related to the topic is that a very sexually insecure person might feel fear, anger and hatred in association with both.

@#1172 --

As-salamu-alaykum.

“You ignore evidence contrary to your argument…”
Name just one instance

I gave one instance already, lying little creep, and contemplated adding more for a combo bonus, but couldn't be bothered at the time.

Now, with few minutes to waste, and seeing you're still covering in fear, no doubt, of logic and intelligence, possibly banging your head against a bible, I'll just tease more of your dishonesty a bit at a time...

Hope that's okay with you, li'l deceitful See.

[Me]: “I would forbid [abortion] from any woman who was under the influence of intoxicants, wasn’t coherent or seemed to be coerced into it against her will or better judgement.”

[You]: You’re still in the 8 for 8 [who think abortions should be allowed in ALL cases)

QED. Again.

See the dishonest woman hater, as you're still flaunting your "8 for 8" like a horny monkey...

..Could you, as a show of honesty and good faith, produce the quotes for each of the eight where they profess to support all abortions in every instance?

If not, why not?

@gaist #1181

Actually, you bring to mind the words of the Rude Pundit:

Mi>The Solution For South Dakota: More Fucking:

Here's what we do: the age of consent in South Dakota is 16 years old, so this'll be easy. We gotta get a bunch of the smoothest black motherfuckers around, sweet-talkin', hot lookin' African American males, we're talkin' some Terence Howard or Andre 3000 or Taye Diggs-lookin' and actin' dudes, and get 'em on board for a mission to South Dakota, where the past-the-age-of-consent (which is, by the way, 16) white pussies are tight and virginal and ready for fuckin'.

[much rudery]

Over the next few weeks, months even, as periods are missed and crocodile tears are shed (for, indeed, there will be few real regrets), you can pretty much bet that abortion on demand will become the law of the land in South Dakota so fast that it'll seem that yesterday never happened.

Our little weasel is fond of little "Well, yeah, what if Martians came and probed our anuses, huh?" gotcha' games but remarkably light on workable strategies for realistic scenarios. Ripped from the safe world of enjoyable fantasy and plonked into such a nightmare world, SN would quickly become the world's foremost proponent of mandatory forced abortions.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

HTML formatting: how does it work?

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

D'Oh: linkery

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2006/03/solution-for-south-dakota-more-f…

If little weasel objects to the use of the word "fuck" in this conversation:

1) grow the fuck up

2) hey, it's the Rude Pundit, that's how he rolls

3) the real obscenity is your insistence that real live women die from the laws that you and your fellow control freaks ram into existence.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

I've been reading this thread on-and-off since the start and really must applaud the persistence of minions like ann, gaist, Chris, Narad, Bill, capnkrunch and all the others who counter whatever See puts forth- often providing DATA- as well as pointing out his issues, psychological and otherwise.
Woo hoo for you!

You'll never change his mind which but you are addressing commenters, readers and the silent ones- lurkers, in whom I take a special interest, being their patron saint or protectress and all.

We live in the 21st century and women determine their own destinies. Apparently some people can't accept that.

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

To gaist #1175:

You: “You ignore evidence contrary to your argument…”

Me: “Name just one instance.”

You: “Your insistance that banning abortions and contraceptives would reduce mortality, with just ann alone providing sufficient evidence to the contrary on this thread.”

Reduce mortality for whom? For the millions of human lives terminated every year by surgical and chemical abortions?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

Speaking of Dr. Ben Carson, here are some thoughts on the presidential races:

The Dems have running an avowed socialist, Bernie, and a congenital liar** and should-be felon, you know who.

I think the GOP has a smorgasbord of decent-to-great presidential candidates.

Right now, if I had to choose a dream team, I think I’d say Ben Carson (President) and Carly Fiorina (VP).

[Maybe Ted Cruz could be Secretary of State, and run for prez in 2024.]

** http://www.nytimes.com/1996/01/08/opinion/essay-blizzard-of-lies.html

By See Noevo (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

[gaist]: “Your insistance that banning abortions and contraceptives would reduce mortality, with just ann alone providing sufficient evidence to the contrary on this thread.”

[See Noevo]: Reduce mortality for whom? For the millions of human lives terminated every year by surgical and chemical abortions?

You didn't really have to give a fresh example of dismissing evidence that doesn't suit you, but thank you. I'm sure the rest of the class appreciates a real life application as well.

“How would the law be enforced?”
By prosecuting transgressions, and with sentences that are generally given for murder.

Case 1
A woman is brought before magistrate S. Noevo. Witnesses (exhibit A, self-identified as relatives) heard her confess she was pregnant, in a manner which to the witnesses betrayed her ambivalence for the situation. Month or so later she told them she had had a miscarriage, with obvious relief.

The militarized Pope-patrol was promptly summoned, and upon examination found suspicious scrapes in her private parts (see photographs, exhibit B to W).

What would be her sentence?

Case 2
The ever-vigilant Pope-patrol captured a pregnant woman when she was rushed to the ER after attempting suicide by overdose of sleeping pills. She explains the attempt was due to her reliving the memory of her rape when she could feel the offspring kicking, and was manifesting signs of severe depression.

How would magistrate S. Noevo, the petty creep, punish her for her attempted homicide, as well as make sure the woman did not attempt one again?

I expect prompt replies or I might be forced to invent your answers rather than just "re-interpret" them, as it seems to be customary here, when See Noevo is in charge. But, hey, when in Rome...

1 Samuel 15:2-3
Thus saith the LORD of hosts ... Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

In the glorious Deceitful States of See Noevo (all hail the Pope-Patrol! Pope-Patrol is our friend!), would I be exempt from punishment if I could prove that the infant I killed was an Amalekite?

And to finish with another delightful and picturesque bible quote:

"Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. (Psalm 137:9)

Any thoughts, little dishonest one?

To ann #1179:

“If abortion was illegal in all circumstances… There would not be fewer abortions… Proscriptions on abortion, whether religious or legal, don’t reduce its prevalence or incidence.”

Those statements are an abortion of both common sense and of the data.

Common sense tells you that if you make an action illegal (i.e. criminalize it), less of it will be committed.

The data from the very pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute says “Estimates of the number of illegal abortions in the 1950s and 1960s ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year. One analysis, extrapolating from data from North Carolina, concluded that an estimated 829,000 illegal or self-induced abortions occurred in 1967.” https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/06/1/gr060108.html

And given Guttmacher’s agenda, one might not be surprised if it did everything it could to stretch those pre-Roe vs. Wade estimates as high as possible.

Compare that to Guttmacher’s post-Roe vs. Wade numbers on U.S. abortions 1973-2011 – average of 1.3 million, with over a dozen years at 1.5 to 1.6 million.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noevo, the Amazing Dishonest Catholic:

From the Guttmacher Institute "Some 1.06 million abortions were performed in 2011, down from 1.21 million abortions in 2008, a decline of 13%"

So almost 50 years later, abortions have risen from estimated 829 thousand to 1,006 thousand? A "rise" of 21% (about), whereas population has risen from little under 200 million to 311 million (in 2011) (a rise of 55%).

And you argue the rate of abortion would plummet by making it illegal?

Sorry, 1,060 thousand, obviously

Now the audience waits with abated breath if See Noevo the Ridiculous Catholic Clown demonstrates yet again his inability to cope with contrary evidence....

(...suspenseful drum roll...)

Those statements are an abortion of both common sense and of the data.

Common sense tells you that if you make an action illegal (i.e. criminalize it), less of it will be committed.

You mean like during prohibition?

You're 0 for 1.

It's actually not common sense to ignore decades and decades of data from all sources and many countries that always -- without exception -- shows that making abortion illegal or restricting access to it does not reduce incidence and prevalence.

For example, the completely Guttmacher-Institute-free figures I already cited once @#853, when I said:

In reality, abortion in the United States was at least as widespread and widely accepted when it was criminal as it is today:

Some late-nineteenth-century doctors believed there were two million abortions a year.[8] In 1904, Dr. C. S. Bacon estimated that “six to ten thousand abortions are induced in Chicago every year.” As one physician remarked in 1911, “Those who apply for abortions are from every walk of life, from the factory girl to the millionaire’s daughter; from the laborer’s wife to that of the banker, no class, no sect seems to be above . . . the destruction of the fetus.”[9] As early-twentieth-century reformers investigated abortion, they produced and preserved knowledge of the business. Their reports, themselves evidence of the growing scrutiny of female sexual and reproductive behavior, show that a significant segment of the female population had abortions. A study of ten thousand working-class clients of Margaret Sanger’s birth control clinics in the late 1920s found that 20 percent of all pregnancies had been intentionally aborted. Surveys of educated, middle-class women in the 1920s showed that 10 to 23 percent had had abortions.[10] Anecdotal information, patient histories collected at maternity and birth control clinics, and mortality data show that women of every racial and religious group had abortions.[11] A more comprehensive survey conducted by Regine K. Stix of almost one thousand women who went to the birth control clinic in the Bronx in 1931 and 1932 found that 35 percent of the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish clients alike had had at least one illegal abortion.[12] By the 1930s, Dr. Frederick J. Taussig, a St. Louis obstetrician and nationally recognized authority on abortion, estimated that there were at least 681,000 abortions per year in the United States.[13]

But of course there’s no way of counting or estimating the number of women who survived self-induced abortions at home without requiring emergency medical attention. So the true numbers were almost certainly higher.

The World Health Organization has found the same trends.

And given Guttmacher’s agenda, one might not be surprised if it did everything it could to stretch those pre-Roe vs. Wade estimates as high as possible.

It might interest you to know that people posting to this thread who have enough common sense not to ignore contradictory evidence out of bias have known since #853 that in the late 19th century, some doctors estimated that it was more like two million.

So. 0 for 2.

Compare that to Guttmacher’s post-Roe vs. Wade numbers on U.S. abortions 1973-2011 – average of 1.3 million, with over a dozen years at 1.5 to 1.6 million.

Yes. That's in line with the range of historic estimates I just cited.

0 for 3.

FYI -- The population isn't always the same size. And there aren't always the same number of women in their reproductive years. And the period immediately following Roe coincided with what happened to be the peak years of boomer fecundity.

So the more indicative figures are actually the proportional ones, not the raw count.

And since that's plain common sense, you're 0 for 4.

Let's turn to the CDC's abortion surveillace data:

In 2011, 730,322 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas. The abortion rate was 13.9 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years and the abortion ratio was 219 abortions per 1,000 live births.

Compared with 2010, the total number and rate of reported abortions for 2011 decreased 5%, and the abortion ratio decreased 4%. Additionally, from 2002 to 2011 the number, rate, and ratio of reported abortions decreased 13%, 14%, and 12%, respectively. The large decreases in the total number, rate, and ratio of reported abortions from 2010 to 2011, in combination with decreases that occurred during 2008–2010, resulted in historic lows for all three measures of abortion.

As you know, those rates have been going down for a while. The decline is not correlated with new restrictions on abortion, either time-wise or geographically. They're correlated with more access to both birth control and information about it.

And since that point has already been made, you're 0 for 5.

@gaist --

Sorry to repeat your points. You must have posted while I was writing..

I guess minds with more common sense than G-d gave geese think alike.

ann,
I'm in awe of your willingness to actually educate and inform, with relevant quality research. At least by now, I'm merely poking See's proclamations with a pointy stick to see if a little light might shine through. In vain, probably, but being an optimist never let anybody down. Oh, wait...

And since that’s plain common sense, you’re 0 for 4.

This of course is the "Golden Sombrero." The terminology for five strikeouts appears to remain unsettled.

Right now, if I had to choose a dream team, I think I’d say Ben Carson (President) and Carly Fiorina (VP).</i?

It would be a dream team for the DNC, as well.

To ann #1195:

Me: “Those statements are an abortion of both common sense and of the data. Common sense tells you that if you make an action illegal (i.e. criminalize it), less of it will be committed.”

You: “You mean like during prohibition? You’re 0 for 1.”

Yes, I mean like the prohibition of alcohol during Prohibition.

“… the conventional view of Prohibition is not supported by the facts….
The [18th] amendment prohibited the commercial manufacture and distribution of alcoholic beverages; it did not prohibit use, nor production for one's own consumption. Moreover, the provisions did not take effect until a year after passage -plenty of time for people to stockpile supplies.
Second, alcohol consumption declined dramatically during Prohibition….
Arrests for public drunkennness and disorderly conduct declined 50 percent between 1916 and 1922. For the population as a whole, the best estimates are that consumption of alcohol declined by 30 percent to 50 percent…
… following the repeal of Prohibition, alcohol consumption increased…
… Prohibition did not end alcohol use. What is remarkable, however, is that a relatively narrow political movement, relying on a relatively weak set of statutes, succeeded in reducing, by one-third, the consumption of a drug that had wide historical and popular sanction.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/16/opinion/actually-prohibition-was-a-su…

You’re 0 for 1.
………………..
“In reality, abortion in the United States was at least as widespread and widely accepted when it was criminal as it is today…”

You’re unreal, and so is that data.
Tell you what, ann. Since you’re for abortion, you should be in favor of outlawing it, because according to you, when abortion is criminalized abortion will be AT LEAST as widespread and widely accepted as it is today.

So, you’re 0 for 2.
……………..
Me: “Compare that to Guttmacher’s post-Roe vs. Wade numbers on U.S. abortions 1973-2011 – average of 1.3 million, with over a dozen years at 1.5 to 1.6 million.”

You: “Yes. That’s in line with the range of historic estimates I just cited.”

And if you and Guttmacher believe “termination of pregnancy” (i.e. the definition of abortion preferred by others here) has decreased since the legalization of surgical abortions AND ABORTIFACIENTS, then you’re even crazier than I would have thought.

You’re 0 for 3.
……………
“FYI — The population isn’t always the same size. And there aren’t always the same number of women in their reproductive years. And the period immediately following Roe coincided with what happened to be the peak years of boomer fecundity. So the more indicative figures are actually the proportional ones, not the raw count. And since that’s plain common sense, you’re 0 for 4.”

And if you and Guttmacher believe the RATE of “termination of pregnancy” (i.e. the definition of abortion preferred by others here) has decreased for women in their reproductive years since the legalization of surgical abortions and abortifacients,
then you’re even crazier than I would have thought earlier.

You’re 0 for 4.
…………………..
“Let’s turn to the CDC’s abortion surveillace data: In 2011, 730,322 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas… Compared with 2010, the total number and rate of reported abortions for 2011 decreased 5%, and the abortion ratio decreased 4%... historic lows for all three measures of abortion.”

Two points:

First,
If you and the CDC believe the RATE of “termination of pregnancy” (i.e. the definition of abortion preferred by others here) has decreased to historic lows for women in their reproductive years since the legalization of surgical abortions and abortifacients,
then you’re still crazier than I would have thought earlier.

Second and less important,
a footnote of sorts: Whatever those 49 reporting areas were, apparently they excluded places like California, New Hampshire and at least one other state. The CDC disclosed that their figures from 1998 forward are missing various reporting areas.
I calculate that prior to 1998, CDC’s totals ran about 90% of Guttmacher’s; from 1998 forward, CDC’s totals ran about 68% of Guttmacher’s.
And who knows, maybe the abortion rates in California and those other “missing” areas would offset the drop in the other 49?

You’re 0 for 5.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

[gaist] “You ignore evidence contrary to your argument…”

[See Noevo]: “Name just one instance.”

You're just a gift that keeps on giving, you little deceitful misogynist you.

Do you want to know the real reason the rate of abortions has gone down, lying misogynistic creep? Easy access to contraceptives, and widespread nonexistence of social stigma associated with their use.

I know it may come as surprise to you, it's not like this has been pointed out to you before.

Ref: #1197.

Here’s the song of the annie-awestruck,
gone-out-of-his gourd, gaist:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2–_5VwrWI

Well, that's the depth of rational argumentation and presentation of evidence I've come to expect of you, little deceitful one.

Is this what Jesus would have done?

And one also notes your utter failure to address any of the posts involving your "arguments", instead feebly trying to score points in your little girls-are-icky-kinderkarten solitaire.

To gaist:

I’ve responded to you many more times than you deserved.
I’ll have to take a long overdue action:
I’m putting you on my, shall we say, “No Fly” list, or telemarketers “Do not call” list.

It’s almost like this, fredo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PogpUrjSxTc

By See Noevo (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

I wasn't expecting any real insight from you anyway, pitiable liar, nor have I been commenting for your benefit anyways, even if I still nurture some unfounded hope that some day something someone here has written would germinate and you might grow a modicum of insight or conscience.

But none of this changes the fact that as of now you're still outlandishly deceitful misogynist generally uninformative in your output, who can only uphold his crumbling facade of "rightness" up with dishonesty and lies. That is why nobody here is taking you seriously. You know this. I know this. Everybody else on this forum knows it.

So I'll just continue making fun of your petty arguments and tantrums and you can continue ignoring contrary evidence and pretending all is good in your little see noevo-land. Same as it ever was.

Is this what Jesus would have done?

As I've noted before, S.N. has a cognitive issue regarding abstract semantic thought. What he genuinely venerates is rules.

This of course dovetails with his personality problems (e.g., frustrated, misogynist control freak), but at his core, the teachings of Jesus are wholly irrelevant – indeed, I sorely doubt that he is in possession of anything more than a primitive token (in the AI sense) that fires a "quote mine!" rule.

He worships the Church, or at least the parts that are simplistic enough for him to kind of grasp – hence the rambling about the Catechism. Ultimately, it's a prop.

@SN #1136

I mean, you can't possibly be serious. So you would let a woman have an indirect abortion by taking a treatment for an unrelated condition, but you wouldn't let her abort if the life threatening condition is directly related to the pregnancy? That makes no fucking sense.

If the woman dies, the fetus dies too, so you'd rather have both of them die rather than have the mother live. You just basically admitted that you want more people dying.

Also, enforcing the law with murder charges on women who abort? Have fun enforcing and sorting ou this legal nightmare. I mean this is so unreasonnable that even judges and police officers wouldn't want to enforce it. You're basically just the biggest self-admitted asshole I've ever talked to.

@ann #1179

Ouch.

Being as 1) the commenters here are so very interested in women, particularly pregnant women, and even more particularly in protecting and elevating the rights or status of pregnant women, and
2) today is the Catholic Feast Day of The Assumption,

I offer this reading from today’s Mass:

“Mary set out
and traveled to the hill country in haste
to a town of Judah,
where she entered the house of Zechariah
and greeted Elizabeth.
When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,
the infant leaped in her womb,
and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,
cried out in a loud voice and said,
“BLESSED ARE YOU AMONG WOMEN,
and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
And how does this happen to me,
that the MOTHER OF MY LORD should come to me?
For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,
the infant in my womb leaped for joy.
Blessed are you who believed
that what was spoken to you by the Lord
would be fulfilled.”
And Mary said:
“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
FROM THIS DAY ALL GENERATIONS WILL CALL ME BLESSED;
the Almighty has done great things for me
and holy is his Name.
He has mercy on those who fear him
in every generation.
He has shown the strength of his arm,
and has scattered the proud in their conceit.
He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,
and has lifted up the lowly.
He has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has come to the help of his servant Israel
for he has remembered his promise of mercy,
the promise he made to our fathers,
to Abraham and his children forever.”
Mary remained with her about three months
and then returned to her home.”

Mary, the greatest human being who ever lived:
the mother of God; Christ’s first disciple, and his first preacher and evangelizer;
now Queen of Heaven.

You can’t get a more elevated status than that.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

As I’ve noted before, S.N. has a cognitive issue regarding abstract semantic thought.

True that. There's really no point in talking to him at all, except for the sake of making true and accurate information available to onlookers. He's Dunning-Kruger defined, pretty much. But there's not much danger anyone will take him seriously at this point. He's fully self-discrediting. So personally, I'm happy to let him have the last word.

In case that wasn't short and declarative enough:

Do a victory dance, See. Go ahead. Please. I want you to.

He’s Dunning-Kruger defined, pretty much.

That might be overly generous, given the big yellow passive-aggressive streak painted on his front and back.

So I’ll just continue making fun of your petty arguments and tantrums and you can continue ignoring contrary evidence and pretending all is good in your little see noevo-land. Same as it ever was.

Far be it from me to interfere in anyone's enjoyment of a good time.

But better you than me.

@#1213 --

Maybe. But it can't be easy to live like that.

Do a victory dance, See. Go ahead. Please. I want you to.

This calls to mind a pen-and-ink illustration from a book or chapter on Ed Gein, but I'm not finding it offhand.

"...given the big yellow passive-aggressive streak painted on his front and back".

IDK. From this neck of the woods, he looks like a pink nightmare the Energizer Bunny.

Eh, just trying the tag. Don't mind me.

By Not a Troll (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

Well. Screwed that up.

By Not a Troll (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1212:

“Do a victory dance, See. Go ahead. Please. I want you to.”

Thanks, but I’m not much of a dancer.
More of a “Just the facts, Ma'am” man.
But I’ll take 5 for 5 any day. And I did (#1200).

By See Noevo (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

Every minute our little weasel is in here flogging his dead horses is a minute he is not out there aiding and abetting, which is a blessing. My prayer circle has been working his behalf, asking that he be touched with understanding. With good fortune his eyes will be opened soon, perhaps along the lines of Saul on the road to Damascus: he, too, used to persecute God's children.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noevo@1210
Huh, so Mary is revered for being blessed by (male) God with his son. When we say respect women we mean based on their own merits as their own people not on how well they bear children. You have elevated Mary to the status of a prized bitch. Not a bad place to be, my dog's mother was a valuable purebred, but clearly lower than the males (try counting the capitalized He's in your passage). I don't think your passage shows quite the respect for women you think it does; regardless here's a counterpoint:

Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands, that even if some do not obey the word, they, without a word, may be won by the conduct of their wives, 2 when they observe your chaste conduct accompanied by fear.

Catholicism: empowering women for millenia.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

“Do a victory dance, See. Go ahead. Please. I want you to.”

Thanks, but I’m not much of a dancer.
More of a “Just the facts, Ma’am” man.
But I’ll take 5 for 5 any day. And I did (#1200)

Well, I can see how you would think that.

After all, it's not like you'd have to redefine more than "facts", "man" and "did". That's easy for you, little dishonest creep. You'll no doubt be able to redefine five random words before breakfast.

Before we ruin your little declaration of victory, let's get back to the old "x for x" list again. Show me eight relevant quotes and I apologize, instead of you.

To really drive the point I was making in #1223 home, note that more than half of the passage See Noevo quoted in #1210 is Mary proclaiming how great (male) God is. As if we didn't already have enough evidence that See Noevo has a warped view of what respecting women entails. Still, I'd rather egg him on than encourage him to put down the shovel. Heck, he's dug deep enough that at this point it's probably faster just to go all the way through than try to climb back out.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noevo@1206

I’m putting you on my, shall we say, “No Fly” list, or telemarketers “Do not call” list.

The technical term for this action is *plonk*.

By the way, I feel like I've been blacklisted too. Was it when I compared you to a radicalized ISIS member? Did that hit too close to home?

Tangentially related, I've found that fundamentalist Christians (of any ilk not just Catholics) tend to be very Islamophobic. I wonder if it has to do with seeing a reflection of their own radical beliefs in extremist Muslims.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

Every minute our little weasel is in here flogging his dead horses is a minute he is not out there aiding and abetting, which is a blessing.

Eh, he's not out anywhere. Hell, he's pathetically recycling his brilliance at Disqustink.

The rep is mildly amusing, but I'll save the remaining link for the more valuable sake of direct analogy, to wit, Cum Pro Nostro Pastorali Munere.

^ Dammit. Link 1 ends at "Disqustink," and link 2 starts at "Cum Pro."

@capnkrunch #1226

Now you have opened an interesting can of worms. I be so old, I remember when the fundies and the Catholics used to spit at each other with rage, joining forces only to dry gulch any Mormon unwary enough to wander by. I suspect it had something to do with competing for the same limited pool of potential converts.

Then a miracle occurred: they realized they all hated the same people, so they hijacked the Boy Scouts - a palace coup about 1977, moved the headquarters from New Jersey to Texas - and all joined hands to hate on the Muslims and the Gays and the Atheists in an orderly fashion.

As a closing aside, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is the dumbest fraud to come down the religious pike since the selling of indulgences sparked the purifying movements we lump together as the Reformation. With any luck, Pope Francis will purge the Church of Rome of the stain of Mariolotry once and for all.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

Yes, I mean like the prohibition of alcohol during Prohibition.

http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/unintended-consequences/

While that article doesn't mention it, women started drinking openly and it became socially acceptable during the Prohibition-era. One of the reasons for reduced chirrosis-deaths despite (after the first 3 or so years) increased consumption of alcohol was that while some of the former alcoholics dried up, new people (women and youth) started drinking and any health issues their drinking would cause weren't seen for several decades.

People spent more of their income on alcohol (price of beer rose by 700%, whisky by 270%), and higher potential profit meant it was marketed more aggressively - and indeed - the average age of drinker went down as bootleggers spread to youths as a previously untapped customer base. Overall, people spent less on other utilities and consumables.

While prohibition didn't create organized crime, it helped make it more ubiquitous and profitable, as well made many of them well-liked. It reduced people's respect for the law and people.

There's also this, if you don't mind the libertatian slant.
http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa157.pdf

You’re 0 for 1, indeed.

You’re unreal, and so is that data.

That's a masterfully succint declaration, little deceitful one. If only you had actually refuted any of the points raised it could have also been relevant.

Tell you what, ann. Since you’re for abortion, you should be in favor of outlawing it, because according to you, when abortion is criminalized abortion will be AT LEAST as widespread and widely accepted as it is today.

I support people's free speech. Yes, even for little deceitful pond scum like you, See Noevo. I'm sure you do too. Maybe we should make it illegal?

So, you’re 0 for 2.

Me: “Compare that to Guttmacher’s post-Roe vs. Wade numbers on U.S. abortions 1973-2011 – average of 1.3 million, with over a dozen years at 1.5 to 1.6 million.”

And if you and Guttmacher believe “termination of pregnancy” (i.e. the definition of abortion preferred by others here everybody, but it's cute how upset you are about it) has decreased since the legalization of surgical abortions AND ABORTIFACIENTS, then you’re even crazier than I would have thought.

And if you and Guttmacher believe the RATE of “termination of pregnancy” (i.e. the definition of abortion preferred by others here) has decreased for women in their reproductive years since the legalization of surgical abortions and abortifacients,
then you’re even crazier than I would have thought earlier.

“Let’s turn to the CDC’s abortion surveillace data: In 2011, 730,322 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas… Compared with 2010, the total number and rate of reported abortions for 2011 decreased 5%, and the abortion ratio decreased 4%… historic lows for all three measures of abortion.”

First,
If you and the CDC believe the RATE of “termination of pregnancy” (i.e. the definition of abortion preferred by others here) has decreased to historic lows for women in their reproductive years since the legalization of surgical abortions and abortifacients,
then you’re still crazier than I would have thought earlier.

Well, the numbers you quoted reveal the same thing. Larger pecentage of population had abortions before Roe vs. Wade than after.

And, protip: Responding "you're crazy" isn't a valid argument to discount sources and evidence.

You’re 0 for 3.
You’re 0 for 4.

Second and less important,
a footnote of sorts: Whatever those 49 reporting areas were, apparently they excluded places like California, New Hampshire and at least one other state. Maryland (see See, it's really not that hard to find information) The CDC disclosed that their figures from 1998 forward are missing various reporting areas.
I calculate that prior to 1998, CDC’s totals ran about 90% of Guttmacher’s; from 1998 forward, CDC’s totals ran about 68% of Guttmacher’s.
And who knows, maybe the abortion rates in California and those other “missing” areas would offset the drop in the other 49?

Who knows? It's a mystery.
http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/states/california/
http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/states/new_hampshire/
http://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/states/maryland/

Bringing the total to 949,512. Less than the number I used when I demonstrated the proportional rate of abortions has gone down from 1967. QED.

And maybe what is "missing" from pre-legalization abortion numbers were all the abortions done at home, in secrecy, or abroad, legally or not, as well as all the unintended terminations of pregnancy you yourself are so fond of.

You’re still, completely and utterly 0 for 5 (plus all the other points in which you've failed miserably we haven't tallied because, honestly, who's keeping score).

But do not despair, misogynistic creep, you can take comfort in familiar surroundings. It's not like this deflated sense of utter failure is unknown to you.

Comment in moderation due to excess linkage, but "Bringing the total to 949,512." assumes the CDC total didn't include estimates from the three missing states. In that case, the total would be lower, naturally.

@ gaist

Show me eight relevant quotes

Full quotes, mind you.
I made it clear See is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

Dang, I can't help one more shot at #1210.

Why See Noevo says Mary is "the greatest human being who ever lived:"
She was
1) "the mother of God"
She bore a son who did great things.

2) "Christ’s first disciple"
She obediently followed her son.

3) "his first preacher and evangelizer"
She parroted her son's words.

Perfectly in line with the belief that women should submit to men.

Robert L Bell@1229
Ah, bigotry. Nothing brings people together quite like it. You've given me some hope for the future though. If the fundies and Catholics did it, maybe one day they can join with the Muslims as well over their hatred of gays and Atheists and their penchant for misogyny. Best case is a District 9 scenario where we can all peacefully subjugate an entirely different intelligent lifeform.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

Look at that, the clock rolled over. Time for another bit of biblical awfulness.

And if a man sells his daughter to be a female slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 15 Aug 2015 #permalink

To SN things are just black, or white. If you are not against abortion in al circumstances, even directly after conception, you are in favor of abortion in all circumstances. It doesn't matter if you tell something else, SN doesn't want to hear it. SN rather see both a woman and her baby die, than save the mother, so her other children, don't have to grow up without a mother.

Mary, the greatest human being who ever lived:
the mother of God; Christ’s first disciple, and his first preacher and evangelizer;
now Queen of Heaven.

You can’t get a more elevated status than that.

Why not. Let us all celebrate a middle-eastern teenager who gave birth to a child not of her husband.

So god impregnates a teenager, she marries another, gives birth, and continues to bear sons and daughters while allegedly remaining a virgin. But god lets his only son die, because reasons, snatched Mary into heaven and proceeds to marry her. Presumably after Joseph has died, otherwise it would have been wrong. Did I miss something?

SN is apparently oblivious that plants that act as abortificants have been known for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. Ergot was a favorite, as well as the cohosh plants. And I know of a few women who have induced abortions with mega-doses of vitamin C. The problem with the above are that most require very large doses, effectiveness is not certain, and they can be toxic.

But SN is OK with women dying. All women are is a uterus to bear sons.

Just thought I'd leave this here:

The Abortion Rate Is Falling Because Fewer Women Are Getting Pregnant:

Elizabeth Ananat, an associate professor of economics at Duke University who studies the economics of fertility, said the data also contradicts the notion that more women are rejecting abortion and choosing to stay pregnant. “If women’s attitudes were really shifting, we should see the birth rate go up,” she says. “Instead, birth rates are falling, too.” (The birth rate reached a record low in 2013, according to the CDC. It fell by 2 percent between 2010 and 2013, and by 9 percent between 2007 and 2013.) According to Ananat and other experts, the decline in abortions is a symptom of another trend: Fewer women are getting pregnant in the first place.

^^Common sense.

SN is apparently oblivious that plants that act as abortificants have been known for hundreds (if not thousands) of years.

Well, considering that SN can't distinguish satire from reality, thinks his self-created neo-religious parables are logic, and is so incapable of comprehending his own errors that he thinks a story about Ashley Judd's childhood sexual abuse redeems his having credulously accepted another asserting that half the people in Kentucky are the products of incest, that's not surprising.

We're talking about someone who literally can't look a word up in the dictionary without comical mishap. Who thinks that two presidential candidates who have a sum total of zero experience running for national office, neither of whom has ever been elected so much as dog-catcher, and one of whom has never run for anything at all would be the ideal 2016 ticket for the Republican Party.

The examples go on and on.

His only real value is that he's so unpleasant in his irrationality that he drives people who are mildly inclined to be equivocal about abortion towards a more adamantly pro-choice position, as he did with (IIRC) Helianthus earlier in the thread.

That's not an insignificant virtue. And inasmuch as Clarence Thomas is said to have had the same effect on Sandra Day O'Connor, there's a very real reason to think that it helps keep abortion legal. So it's not all bad.

^^The best part is that he won't be able to understand any of that.

BTW, I've been meaning to mention that the irony of SN's using those out-of-context Sanger quotes to make her look like a racial eugenicist is that it's practically the defining feature of real American racial eugenicists of that era that they made the same argument SN does at #755. And by "real American racial eugenicists," I mean "the ones the Nazis were inspired by."

Seriously. It was exactly the same. I'll see if I can find some examples.

A fuller explanation of what abortion stats do and don't mean is here, for those who care enough about the issue to make sure that what they say means anything at all.

Also:

And who knows? Someday the world may even have more babies.
It better, because we appear to be going ever deeper into a demographic winter (i.e. More and more old people and fewer and fewer young people).
IF we ever come out of this winter, the spring time could be generations away.

As I recall, China has already abandoned its one-child policy and is now encouraging its women to have more children. Russia, Japan, Denmark, Singapore and other countries have begun incentivizing much higher fertility rates. They’ve seen the writing on the wall.

But there’s at least one people that hasn’t had a shortage of babies. They actually appear to look at their fertility, in part, as a world-conquering weapon (time 4:45):

^^SN @#755.

So broad and straight now is the channel by which this immigration is being conducted to our shores, that there is no reason why every stagnant pool of European population, representing the utterest failures of civilization, the worst defeats in the struggle for existence, the lowest degradation of human nature, should not be completely drained off into the United States. So long as any difference of economic conditions remains in our favor, so long as the least reason appears for the miserable, the broken, the corrupt, the abject to think that they might be better off here than there, if not in the workshop, then in the workhouse, these Huns, and Poles, and Bohemians, and Russian Jews, and South Italians will continue to come, and to come by millions. — Francis Walker

We are threatened with an overproduction of Japanese children. First come the men, then the picture brides, then the families. If California is to be preserved for the next generation as a “white man’s country” there must be some movement started that will restrict the Japanese birth-rate in California. — Literary Digest

^^Stuff eugenicists who wanted their race to be supreme said that Margaret Sanger opposed.

The further irony is that they were virulently anti-Catholic.

Some people never learn.

MI Dawn,

SN is apparently oblivious that plants that act as abortificants have been known for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. Ergot was a favorite, as well as the cohosh plants. And I know of a few women who have induced abortions with mega-doses of vitamin C.

The "vitamin C induces abortion" one is a myth, sadly not the others.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 16 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1239:

“Well, considering that SN can’t distinguish satire from reality, thinks his self-created neo-religious parables are logic, and is so incapable of comprehending his own errors that he thinks a story about Ashley Judd’s childhood sexual abuse redeems his having credulously accepted another asserting that half the people in Kentucky are the products of incest, that’s not surprising.”

Now you’re 0-for-8 or 9, I’m losing count.
I’ll explain:

You were the first to bring up the subject of incest and abortion for pregnancies of incest (#1137).

The ENTIRE point of my subsequent words on incest was this:
You, ann, believe such products of incest (i.e. conceptions from incest) should be aborted.
Closely tied to this main point, is that in an ann’s mind, a now walking-talking product of incest should be dead - should have been aborted.
And yes, there MUST be SOME such human beings, given our awareness of the real and far-to-common incidence of incest – *as evidenced by sorry tales from the silver screen although the way to “serious” satire”.
…………………
“We’re talking about someone who literally can’t look a word up in the dictionary without comical mishap.”

Let’s call it 0-for-10.

“Who thinks that two presidential candidates who have a sum total of zero experience running for national office, neither of whom has ever been elected so much as dog-catcher, and one of whom has never run for anything at all would be the ideal 2016 ticket for the Republican Party.”

Pity poor George Washington, Ulysses Grant, Dwight Eisenhower.

0-11.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 16 Aug 2015 #permalink

Speaking of scores, lying creep, hows that list of 8 quotes for 8 coming along?

“Who thinks that two presidential candidates who have a sum total of zero experience running for national office, neither of whom has ever been elected so much as dog-catcher, and one of whom has never run for anything at all would be the ideal 2016 ticket for the Republican Party.”

Pity poor George Washington, Ulysses Grant, Dwight Eisenhower.

Remind us again, which military forces did your dynamic duo successfully lead?

“We’re talking about someone who literally can’t look a word up in the dictionary without comical mishap.”

Let’s call it 0-for-10.

I agree. There's nothing remotely enjoyable about you fumbling even something that simple.

Let me explain. Point me to a dictionary with your definition of abortion.

To ann #1241:

Me: “And who knows? Someday the world may even have more babies.
It better, because we appear to be going ever deeper into a demographic winter (i.e. More and more old people and fewer and fewer young people).
IF we ever come out of this winter, the spring time could be generations away.
As I recall, China has already abandoned its one-child policy and is now encouraging its women to have more children. Russia, Japan, Denmark, Singapore and other countries have begun incentivizing much higher fertility rates. They’ve seen the writing on the wall.

But there’s at least one people that hasn’t had a shortage of babies. They actually appear to look at their fertility, in part, as a world-conquering weapon (time 4:45)…”

That last paragraph is a simple fact, but one which is secondary, and a distant second, to the MAIN POINT:

ANY culture, ANY society, is destined for dissolution without adequate reproduction.
Rerun:

“In order for a culture to maintain itself for more than 25 years, there must be a fertility rate of 2.11 children per family.
Historically, no culture has ever reversed a 1.9 fertility rate; a rate of 1.3, impossible to reverse…
As of 2007 the fertility rate in France was 1.8.
England 1.6
Greece 1.3
Germany 1.3
Italy 1.2
Spain 1.1

Across the entire European Union of 31 countries, the fertility rate is a mere 1.38.

Historical research tells us these numbers are impossible to reverse. In a matter of years, Europe, as we know it, will cease to exist…”

Again, the MAIN POINT is about the danger of having too few babies. It is not about immigration nor about xenophobia.
……………

If there be any modern day eugenicists, where might they be more likely to be found?

1)Among the group trying to stop all abortions and abortifacients? Or

2)Among the group overseeing and/or approving the disproportionate killing of blacks** and of other problem babies***?

** The percentage of black pregnancies aborted is several times higher than for whites.
*** For pregnancies with a Down’s Syndrome diagnosis, for example, the abortion rate is 67% in the U.S., 92% in Europe.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 16 Aug 2015 #permalink

Correction to my #1243:

And yes, there MUST be SOME such human beings, given our awareness of the real and far-to-common incidence of incest – *as evidenced by sorry tales from the silver screen all the way through to “serious” satire.*

By See Noevo (not verified) on 16 Aug 2015 #permalink

ANY culture, ANY society, is destined for dissolution without adequate reproduction.
Rerun:

“In order for a culture to maintain itself for more than 25 years, there must be a fertility rate of 2.11 children per family.

Because Singapore collapsed by 2000?

So your theory didn't survive the first nation I picked. Way to go, dishonest one.

At least you're consistent.

And Japan in 1999?

Historical research tells us these numbers are impossible to reverse. In a matter of years, Europe, as we know it, will cease to exist…”

Which historical research, and what were the morality rates in those times? Because we need those rates too, in addition to birth rates to see actual effects on population and society.

Which historical research, and what were the morality rates in those times?

He's simply repeating stuff from a half-assed Y—be video. See here.

See Noevo quoting incorrect evidence? Who would have guessed...

</killfile>

Again, the MAIN POINT is about the danger of having too few babies. It is not about immigration nor about xenophobia.

I guess that's why S.N. conspicuously omitted identifying his source, "Muslim Demographics."

(Somehow I doubt that he's familiar with the work of one Reed R. Critchfield.)

<killfile>

The main point of American racial eugenicists was -- oddly enough -- that there were too few babies.

That's exactly why Margaret Sanger was not one of them.

Those who do not learn from history, etc. And it's not like it's even obscure. I mean, were the Nazis were pro-birth control? No. They wanted more babies:

When Hitler came to power in 1933, he introduced a Law for the Encouragement of Marriage, which entitled newly married couples to a loan of 1000 marks (around 9 months' average wages at that time). On their first child, they could keep 250 marks. On their second, they could keep another 250. They reclaimed all of the loan by their fourth child.

In a September 1934 speech to the National Socialist Women's Organization, Adolf Hitler argued that for the German woman her “world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home”,[9] a policy which was reinforced by the stress on "Kinder" and "Küche" in propaganda, and the bestowal of the Cross of Honor of the German Mother on women bearing four or more babies.

That we're-being-outbred! stuff is always a barely veiled unreconstructed proto-fascist rallying cry for suckers and subscribers to Mankind Quarterly.

People never learn.

Ah, Reed R. Critchfield. He appears to have impeccable credentials in the field of demography:

A graduate of the University of Utah with a Masters Degree in Business Administration, Reed spent 27 years in the Army culminating in his assignment as the Commander of the 1/211th Attack Helicopter Battalion based in West Jordan, Utah. After his retirement from the Army, Reed has worked as a management consultant and is currently the Director of Human Resources for a company in the energy industry. His experiences in the military and consulting coupled with his membership in the LDS (Mormon) Church gave him pause to contemplate the cause and effect relationships between people, governments, nature and God. As the potentially apocalyptic date of December 21, 2012 approaches, what can we do to prepare? Who can help? How can we help ourselves and those we love? If you are searching to find yourself, help is here for the taking. Please…help yourself. And when you do that, you help us all.

I think he might be the father or uncle of this guy. The names both appear in obituaries, etc. But it's hard to tell with Mormons. (There's another Troy Reed Critchfield, but he seems to be the wrong age. And so on.)

In any event, I suppose it wouldn't be his fault even if he were. It just piqued my interest.

Pity poor George Washington, Ulysses Grant, Dwight Eisenhower.

If not the worst President in US history, Grant was easily in the top three (along with Jackson and Taft).

From the Eugenics Archive:

The alarmist term “race suicide” was coined by the popular and distinguished U.S. sociologist Edward A. Ross at the turn of the 20th century. The concept was in-principle a general one. When the birth rate within a so-called race dropped below the death rate, “race suicide” was thought to be occurring, with the ultimate consequence that the “race” would die out.

^^Demographic winter. Too few babies. Muslims/Immigrants. Same difference. A racial eugenicist is a racial eugenicist.

@#1257 --

None of them is an apt comparison to Fiorina or Carson. The electoral process has changed since Washington's day. And Eisenhower was drafted to run by the party, ffs. If that was the case with either of SN's dream team, it wouldn't matter that they have no idea what they're doing. But it's not.

To ann #1255:

“The main point of American racial eugenicists was — oddly enough — that there were too few babies. That’s exactly why Margaret Sanger was not one of them.”

Really?
Or was the main point more like too few of the RIGHT KIND of babies?
And that’s why Margaret Sanger WAS one of them.
..................
“I mean, were the Nazis were pro-birth control? No. They wanted more babies…”

So, your lesson is: If you’re anti-birth control and want more babies, you’re a racial eugenicist. Got it.

And you’re 0-for-13.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 16 Aug 2015 #permalink

So, your lesson is: If you’re anti-birth control and want more babies, you’re a racial eugenicist. Got it.

And you’re 0-for-13.
Says the "man" (and I use the term lightly) wailing about muslims outbreeding decent Europeans. Lesson still unlearned, I see.

As gaist says.

In any event,as of 2013, the fertility rate for non-Hispanic blacks was 65 per 1000 women vs. 60 per 1000 for non-Hispanic whites, accounting for 15 percent of all births, slightly above the replacement rate. And those numbers are relatively stable.

So nobody appears to be driving anyone to extinction.

To ann #1262:

“As gaist says. In any event,as of 2013, the fertility rate for non-Hispanic blacks was 65 per 1000 women vs. 60 per 1000 for non-Hispanic whites, accounting for 15 percent of all births, slightly above the replacement rate. And those numbers are relatively stable.
So nobody appears to be driving anyone to extinction.”

Now THAT is some real “Now” thinking!
You know, like ‘Live [and think] only for today, for tomorrow we die.’

Your thinking reminds me of the “Now” thinking of the global warmers:
‘In any event,as of 2013, the planetary heating rate for … blah blah blah… is [only] slightly above the replacement rate [or historical rate]. And those numbers are relatively stable. So global warming doesn’t appear to be driving anyone to extinction.”

And I thought: Yes! That's exactly how GWers think and how THEY say it…
only completely differently.

P.S.
Who said anything about “extinction”?
I was talking about dangerously low fertility numbers which will lead to the BREAKDOWN of economies, cultures and societies. But even with such breakdown, we’ll still have some people around. But it would be a nightmare.
Hey, I hear there’s a new “Mad Max” movie coming out. Have you seen it?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 16 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noevo@1243

Closely tied to this main point, is that in an ann’s mind, a now walking-talking product of incest should be dead – should have been aborted.

How do you get from victims of incest* should have the option to terminate resultant pregnancies to anyone born of incest should be dead? Only by misrepresenting others' words at an APV or above level.

I'm curious, See Noevo. Do you think that aborting a life-threatening pregnancy is a worse crime than raping a 9 year girl.

*I say victims because I'm 99% sure everyone but you is talking about incest that is a subset of rape, not the consensual Jamie x Cersei kind.

@1247

But there’s at least one people that hasn’t had a shortage of babies. They actually appear to look at their fertility, in part, as a world-conquering weapon (time 4:45)…

Missed this first time around but thanks for confirming my suspicions that you are an Islamophobe.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 16 Aug 2015 #permalink

Says the “man” (and I use the term lightly) wailing about muslims outbreeding decent Europeans. Lesson still unlearned, I see.

S.N. has left irony far behind. This is someone so stupid that he can write this, quoting an anonymous, six-year-old, error-filled anti-Muslim video, and not notice the problem:

Across the entire European Union of 31 countries, the fertility rate is a mere 1.38.

"Historical research tells us these numbers are impossible to reverse. In a matter of years, Europe, as we know it, will cease to exist…”

Again, the MAIN POINT is about the danger of having too few babies. It is not about immigration nor [sic] about xenophobia.

And then, amazingly, the icing on the shіtcake:

Or was the main point more like too few of the RIGHT KIND of babies?

He also seems to have forgotten about squaring up his "perpetual passive welfare mentality" remark with this pratfall.

And never, ever, has S.N. responded to the directly relevant question how many children he has sired, much less what "they" are contributing to society. But he's bitching all the same. It turns out that most of his co-religionists and countrymen who, you know, have actually succeeded in getting to the starting line in the first place, seem to be indifferent* to that whole condoms-only-for-male-prostitutes** routine.

BTW, did S.N. ever come clean as to whether he was pro-CRS thanks to the abominations of WI-38 and RA 27/3?

* It's under "Marital Status and Family Size of Religious Groups"; the actual table is an image.
** I think this was Benedict "easing" the Church's pro-HIV stance in Africa, but the details aren't worth the effort.

Who said anything about “extinction”?

Yes, your instence that it is physically impossible for mankind to suffer an extinction event because Jesus has already been noted.

I was talking about dangerously low fertility numbers which will lead to the BREAKDOWN of economies, cultures and societies. But even with such breakdown, we’ll still have some people around. But it would be a nightmare.

G-d, it's fantastic to watch you squirm. You fail to acknowledge that your truly pathetic source collapses upon cursory examination, refuse to accept what its actual conclusion – which you stupidly quoted – was, and now stick with it using the time-honored technique of pseudoeconomic hand-waving.

You knew exactly what it was and tried to hide it here:

With the precipitous drop in birth rates around the world, we are entering into uncharted territory. I’m not aware of any civilization or society in human history that “flourished” economically and culturally which had a declining population.

Just slightly off this topic, but very much relevant to concerning developments in the Middle East and elsewhere…

I’ll title this “How Islam will dominate the world: Babies”: [link to "Muslim Demographics"]

h[]tp://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2015/03/29/the-vacuity-of-natural-law/#comment-62136

Anyway...

ZOMG, increased labor costs. Walk everybody through it in detail without copying and pasting from yet another of the group shіt-ins that you frequent. Try reviewing the actual literature first.

Oh, wait, hey, who am I?*

Of the two junk science cousins, evolution and AGW, the latter is obviously far more worrisome. We’ll have no problems with the climate, of course, but rather we have a lot to worry about regarding the devastating tsunami of government regulation and taxation with which we’ll be “saved.”

Don't fail to include that in the timeline to "we'll still have some people around." Remember, you also have to make contact with the endpoint of your augury/wager that the RCC would be left standing regardless at the end of days, which I'm too tired to waste more time trying to dredge your Wide, Wide River for.

* Another keeper:

From the articles below, I have have at least two takeaways:
1) Stop illegal immigration at the southern border, and
2) Grow up.

“Seven-in-ten Hispanics say the Earth is warming mostly because of human activity, compared with 44% among non-Hispanic whites.”

Nope, the whole show was immigration neutral.

h[]tp://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2015/07/08/conspiracies-all-the-way-down-is-your-local-climate-contrarian-a-kook-or-a-crook/#comment-622955

BREAKDOWN of economies, cultures and societies.

Breaking News! Japan and Singapore collapsed at the turn of the millennium!" Way to go See Noevo the lying little creep.

@ Narad

I think this was Benedict “easing” the Church’s pro-HIV stance in Africa, but the details aren’t worth the effort.

From memory, it was the previous pope, the one who resigned.
I remember thinking at the time how the RCC leaders had a limited grasp of human sexuality and STDs. Like, it would be better if male customers would be using a condom, regardless of the prostitute's gender. Or regardless if it is a moneyed relation, or not.

During Jean-Paul 2's service time, a French Archbishop (Cardinal?), a bit more in touch with reality than the others, dared to say "Don't add the sin of murder to the sin of flesh", in the context of HIV transmission.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 16 Aug 2015 #permalink
In any event,as of 2013, the fertility rate for non-Hispanic blacks was 65 per 1000 women vs. 60 per 1000 for non-Hispanic whites, accounting for 15 percent of all births, slightly above the replacement rate. And those numbers are relatively stable.
So nobody appears to be driving anyone to extinction.”

Now THAT is some real “Now” thinking!
You know, like ‘Live [and think] only for today, for tomorrow we die.’

Oh noes! The browning of America! But no, obviously See Noevo is not a lying misogynistic eugenicist. No. No doubt it's just "common sense" because them dirty muslims are breedin' faster he could 'it 'em with a stick.

@ ann, gaist

BTW, thanks for your posts, I'm learning stuff.

And I admire your resilience to all the goalpost shifting.
I wonder if See is realizing that, by going for the "make more babies of the right color" angle, he just abandoned the (moral) high ground and simultaneously shelled both his former and his new position.
Again.

Not that his high ground was that high to start with.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 16 Aug 2015 #permalink

I should note that See Noevo's performance in his last thread here is quite telling.
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/05/20/why-do-doctors-deny-evolut…

I asked See a few questions about his authority:

See Noevo, what gives you the authority to decide who’s a proper Christian and who isn’t? Were you crucified? Were you resurrected? Was I baptised in your name? Why should I take you as an authority?

Here is his response:

Are you saying NO ONE apart from Jesus Christ has authority to say definitively what Christianity is, and even authority to decide what proper Christian behavior is?

That's right, his response to my question was to undermine Jesus Christ's authority!

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 17 Aug 2015 #permalink

To clarify, See's big issue there isn't blasphemy, it's egotism. He can't see himself as wrong, even if the very God he worships contradicts him. He's willing to make ludicrous and racist arguments because he can't perceive the possibility that we'd find them wrong or objectionable.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 17 Aug 2015 #permalink

My point was actually that even if all those Sanger quotes about extirpating the unfit were not ahistorical, misrepresentative, and out-of-context -- which they are -- the insinuation that Planned Parenthood was engaged in racial genocide would still be categorically, demonstrably, and obviously false.

But I agree that the quotes about Muslims are clearly intended to suggest that the extinction of "our" kind is imminent.

Honestly, that they come from a book about the new age of man that will dawn after the December 2012 apocalypse foretold by Mayans only makes them even more neo-Weimar than they already were.

It's just amazing (and depressing) that people continue to fall for that stuff.

The "now" thinking of the global warmers -- aka "the moral and social teaching of the Church"*** -- is that climate change does appear to be driving people to extinction:

Doomsday predictions can no longer be met with irony or disdain. We may well be leaving to coming generations debris, desolation and filth. The pace of consumption, waste and environmental change has so stretched the planet’s capacity that our contemporary lifestyle, unsustainable as it is, can only precipitate catastrophes, such as those which even now periodically occur in different areas of the world. The effects of the present imbalance can only be reduced by our decisive action, here and now. We need to reflect on our accountability before those who will have to endure the dire consequences.

What dire consequences might those be?

Well. Merriam-Webster does not define "unsustainable." But its meaning can be inferred via logic and common sense from its definition of "sustainable":

: able to be used without being completely used up or destroyed

: involving methods that do not completely use up or destroy natural resources

: able to last or continue for a long time

IOW: Eventual extinction.

***Requires religious submission of intellect and will from True Catholics.

What he genuinely venerates is rules.

Only when they coincide with his hatred- and fear-based personal needs.

To ann #1275:

I think Pope Francis’ encyclical was largely, but not entirely, a disgrace of ignorance and lefty-politics.

In Laudato Si’, the Pope is way out of his league, both personally and positionally - at least regarding global warming and capitalism.
And if I happen to bump into him next month in Philly, maybe I’ll get to tell him so.

Pope Francis would have done better to skip the 37,000 some word encyclical and just quote a few verses from Scripture, like

“Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them HAVE DOMINION OVER the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and OVER ALL THE EARTH, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." … And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and SUBDUE IT; and HAVE DOMINION over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." [Genesis 1:26,28]

But also…
“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and KEEP IT.” [Genesis 2:15]

Enough said.
I got it, Lord.

P.S.
The Pope and archbishop ann could take some lessons from Philly’s Archbishop Charles Chaput.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 17 Aug 2015 #permalink

Strangely, one of the parts of Laudato Si’ where Pope Francis WAS on solid ground never got much if any coverage in the media or on website like this.

The largely ignored words were in paragraph 120:

“Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion. How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be, if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? “If personal and social sensitivity towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away”.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 17 Aug 2015 #permalink

I'm failing to understand why there's this presumed need to protect human embryos, See--it's not as if they were known to be human beings, after all.

ann@1276

Only when they coincide with his hatred- and fear-based personal needs.

See Noevo@1277 (literally one post later)

I think Pope Francis’ encyclical was largely, but not entirely, a disgrace of ignorance and lefty-politics.

In Laudato Si’, the Pope is way out of his league, both personally and positionally – at least regarding global warming and capitalism.

Bwahahaha! Point ann.

“The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and KEEP IT.” [Genesis 2:15]

Enough said.
I got it, Lord.

Do you though? I'm pretty sure that in this case keep doesn't mean:

: to continue having or holding (something) : to not return, lose, sell, give away, or throw away (something)

but rather:

2 :preserve, maintain: as
a :to watch over and defend
b (1) :to take care of :tend (2) :support (3) :to maintain in a good, fitting, or orderly condition —usually used with up

My reasoning being that this definition makes more sense in the context of "to till it amd keep it." Till of course meaning:

:to work by plowing, sowing, and raising crops :cultivate

It's talking about taking care of the earth, not owning it.

Seems like disregarding AGW (as well as the unrestrained industry that caused it) is actually the opposite of what that passage says. Heck, even if keep means what you think it does in that passage, it's hard to argue that what we're doing to the earth is cultivating (tilling).

Even if God gave us dominion over the earth, is that any reason to wreck it? Are you the kind of person who treats all your belongings as disposable? I try to maintain my things in a good condition. Shouldn't a gift from God be treated with the utmost respect?

You know what? I take back what I said before. You're not radicalized, you're not devout. You're just another bigoted right-wing nutjob following in the time honored tradition of cherry-picking the bible to preach your discriminatory and irresponsible beliefs. My apologies to the true believers who hold their awful beliefs because the church said so. See Noevo is just a scumbag entirely on his own volition.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 17 Aug 2015 #permalink

Oh, look, SN, the bad example, has returned. We may now all point and laugh.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 17 Aug 2015 #permalink

And I thought to Roman Catholics the pope were infailable, but according to SN this is only true if the pope doesn't say things SN doesn't agree with.

See, are you sure you want God to fix the issues caused by global warming? The elimination of a few countries to save the world is certainly within His means, and He tends to dislike the wealthy and powerful ones, like the United States.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 17 Aug 2015 #permalink

@#1282 --

His teachings are only infallible when he speaks ex cathedra (or in ecclesial union with the Bishops regarding doctrine, etc.).

The required response to what he says about morals and faith in an encyclical is "religious submission of intellect and will."

But as I said, SN is only strict with himself about being Catholic when it tickles his hatred- and fear-based fancy.

(Example: The Pope says irony and disdain are no longer an acceptable response to the dire threat of global warming? SN responds with irony and disdain.

Granted, he has little in the way of intellect and will to begin with. All impulse, no control.)

In Laudato Si’, the Pope is way out of his league, both personally and positionally – at least regarding global warming and capitalism.
And if I happen to bump into him next month in Philly, maybe I’ll get to tell him so.

I'm sure he's used to being the better person.

See, let me ask you a simple hypothetical. Say you own an apartment complex, with several renters. And let's say one day you come to visit and discover that one of the tenants has deliberately set the building on fire, rendering many of the apartments uninhabitable and leaving several renters homeless.

How would feel if the one who started the fire said "You can just rebuild it, right? I paid my rent, I should be able to do what I want!" Wouldn't you make him pay for all the repairs, permanently evict him, and have him arrested for arson? So what makes you think God will be merciful to you for your abuse of shared resources?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 17 Aug 2015 #permalink

In Laudato Si’, the Pope is way out of his league, both personally and positionally – at least regarding global warming and capitalism.

Whereas you are undoubtedly the unquestioned grandmaster and sage of both. You must be, given your pompous posturing. It's a pity and a mystery how your unparalleled qualifications don't Come through in any of your comments, though. Weird that.

It’s talking about taking care of the earth, not owning it.

Yes:

The Hebrew root used in the verb “will guard you” is shamar (SHAMAR), which first appears in the Bible in Gen 2:15 where Adam was instructed to dress and “keep” the garden. It is also used in Gen 17:9 where God instructs Abraham to “keep” His covenant. In fact, shamar is used over 400 times in the Tanakh, and the basic idea of the root is to “exercise great care over,” to “watch closely,” to “guard”, to “take heed,” and to “tend” (as a flock).

He's also wrong to think that this...

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness; and let them HAVE DOMINION OVER the fish of the sea, and over the
birds of the air, and over the cattle, and OVER ALL THE EARTH, and over every
creeping thing that creeps upon the earth." … And God blessed them, and God said to them,
"Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and SUBDUE IT; and HAVE
DOMINION over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every
living thing that moves upon the earth." [Genesis 1:26,28]

...that the earth is his to own and to pwn.

It's more like a command to tame the wilderness and reign over it -- ie, to be agrarian and not get eaten by tigers; to maintain national parks and build reservoirs, etc. -- than it is divine authorizatiob to treat the joint like it's yours.

@Krebiozen: I know vitamin C isn't a very effective abortificant, but, megadoses can cause severe diarrhea, which can sometimes cause uterine contractions, leading to miscarriage. I have seen it work. The women who tried it didn't want surgical TOPs if they could avoid it and this was before some of the other, much more effective meds we have now. It worked for 2 of them, not the others.

Ahhh...SN shows his true bigoted colors. He's not worried about abortion, per se. He's worried that those OTHER PEOPLE will have more babies and TAKE OVER THE COUNTRY (Like that Obummer guy whom I'm certain SN hates and calls all sorts of names, like "Muslim" and "Kenyan"). Color me not surprised he's a bigot. The only thing that keeps him for being Quiverful is that he's not fundie Protestant. If he had his way, his wife would be constantly pregnant, too.

Here’s one of the people advising the Vatican on climate change in these post-Laudato Si’ days.
She was one of the speakers in a Vatican post-encyclical press conference and will be helping to lead one or more Vatican “climate change summits” this year.

That's pretty impressive for a secular Jewish atheist!

But she also has some “unorthodox” views about the effects of climate change, like
“It’s clear that as sea levels rise that this mean streak and open racism is going to become more extreme – climate change is an accelerant to all those other issues.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422661/climate-racism-worse-naomi…

Maybe ann knows Naomi. They seem to have some things in common.

Actually, I’m a bit surprised ann isn’t involved in these Vatican summits. She could school the Pope and others there on Catholicism, as well as on other stuff like climate change, capitalism, and maybe racism, abortion, etc.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 17 Aug 2015 #permalink

Can’t get away from presidential politics being shockingly desperate for attention.

FTFY.

The only thing that keeps him for being Quiverful is that he’s not fundie Protestant. If he had his way, his wife would be constantly pregnant, too.

His what? Let's turn back time:

To ann #1231:

“The thing that really distinguished Christianity’s thinking about sex and marriage from Judaism’s was the idea that lust was bad, and celibacy therefore good.”

It’s almost as if you’re saying lust and celibacy are opposites. But they’re not. Lust and CHASTITY are closer to true opposites.
Christ and His Church[*] call ALL to chastity, but only some to celibacy.

S.N. has never advanced the slightest challenge to the straightforward inference that his misogyny is a direct result of frustration over rejection by the fairer sex, "access" to which he seems to assume is biblically mandated to be akin to ordering from the Sears catalog.

I'd describe S.N. as a troglodyte, but that would do a disservice to both Jimmy Castor and "Li'l John" Rinaldi.**

One thing that I have mentioned before and has effectively been conceded is that under no circumstances is S.N. going to sack it up and request a pastoral assessment of his behavior and guidance going forward.

If it weren't for the examplars of Denice's professional reserve and JP's sense of propriety, I'd be freely horking up lit-crit at this point.

* Hi, sloppy Gnosticism!
** In this context, I seem to recall S.N.'s thinking that mentioning his smoking of a cigar was some sort of display of sophistication or something. G-d only knows what other sort of MRA fashion affectations he thinks are still "hip."

But she also has some “unorthodox” views about the effects of climate change, like
“It’s clear that as sea levels rise that this mean streak and open racism is going to become more extreme – climate change is an accelerant to all those other issues.”

What, pray tell, is unorthodox or controversial about that?

It's been common knowledge - and indeed, common sense that scarcity or resources (due to droughts, flooding, heavier storms) as well as increased uncertainty of crop harvests etc. will lead to unrest, as will forced migration of coastal areas or arable land becomes uninhabitable.

Even the US military has been preparing for this since 2003, at least. http://climateandsecurity.org/resources/u-s-government/defense/

Or maybe they were dirty lefties all along too, like the Pope?

The little lying creep has once again demonstrates his utter lack of insight or even common sense.

BTW, See Noevo the petty misogynistic eugenicist...

...do you still want me to continue pointing out instances of you running away from or stubbornly ignoring evidence? You asked me to give you examples, but so far you've ignored all of them?

Maybe it's time to man up and acquiesce in face of overwhelming proof, little creep?

“Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and SUBDUE IT; and HAVE DOMINION over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” [Genesis 1:26,28]

And how's that working out in practice for you, S.N.? Be specific, as there's more than one moving part here.

For example, do you catch your own fish? Do you inquire as to the supply chain à la kashrut? Or do you also have DOMINION over, say, the likely heathen individuals who deliver the "chicken fish of the sea" to the Divine* Entitlement of your grocery store?

What if, say, the cοοlies and zіpperheads decided to keep their catch for themselves? Is there some recipe in the Dungeonmaster's Guide Catechism that covers this?

I mean, fυck, you were the slapdіck who thought he could get away with pretending that "Muslim Demographics" was some sort of authoritative resource. Twice. What about all the very same sand nіggers who provide you with your Holy Gasoline?

Walk everybody through this one. There's always time for you to get back to** sorting out in detail which parts of the Bull Cum pro Nostro Pastorali Munere are ex cathedra.

After all, you like to "work from first principles," don't you? Hell, you've overtly fantasized about how you're going to give Pope Francis a piece of your cheesesteak "mind" if you "happen to bump into him" while you're wandering around Fishtown or some similarly psychically accommodating hole.

* Already elucidated, I'm pretty sure.
** Heh. Are there "mulieres in ecclesiis taceant" T-shirts? Bumper stickers? Maybe you could get a tramp stamp.

Or maybe they were dirty lefties all along too, like the Pope?

The Mulatto* infesting the White House has brought things to a head, of course.

* Yes, he's actually dragged out the "not a Black president" routine, although I'm not going to play Ed Norton in the sewer of his Disqustink comments at the moment.

She could school the Pope and others there on Catholicism, as well as on other stuff like climate change, capitalism,

Please, He obviously knows more about Catholicism than any member of the laity or secular by-stander could hope to. And he spent a year and a half preparing that encyclical.

What kind of person would be arrogant enough to presume to school him about any of them?

In Laudato Si’, the Pope is way out of his league, both personally and positionally – at least regarding global warming and capitalism.
And if I happen to bump into him next month in Philly, maybe I’ll get to tell him so.

Project much?

and maybe racism, abortion, etc.

Again, I wouldn't presume. Per wiki, while he's "unwaveringly orthodox" in all the usual ways and more conservative than otherwise, he's also "critical of those who reduce the faith to its precepts on sexual morality" -- ie, abortion, contraception, homosexuality.

But I really don't know that much about him.

But she also has some “unorthodox” views about the effects of climate change, like
“It’s clear that as sea levels rise that this mean streak and open racism is going to become more extreme – climate change is an accelerant to all those other issues."

What, pray tell, is unorthodox or controversial about that?

For real. It doesn't take more than logic, common sense and observation to see that.

Naomi: “It’s clear that as sea levels rise that this mean streak and open racism is going to become more extreme – climate change is an accelerant to all those other issues.”

ann: “For real. It doesn’t take more than logic, common sense and observation to see that.”

Rumor is that Naomi and ann are coming out with some new T-shirt slogans:

“Hands up, don’t shoot! Don’t deny climate change!”

“Black lives matter! Don’t defund Planned Parenthood!”

“Racism ain’t cool. Stop heating the planet!”

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

You’re never too old to learn, nor too young.
Take our Al Sharpton (Please!), who was ordained a Pentecostal minister at the age of 10.
Rumor is that ancient Al’s going back to school for an advanced degree in meteorology,
and that the N.A.A.C.P. and The New Black Panthers will cover his tuition costs.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

gaist@1294

It’s been common knowledge – and indeed, common sense that scarcity or resources (due to droughts, flooding, heavier storms) as well as increased uncertainty of crop harvests etc. will lead to unrest, as will forced migration of coastal areas or arable land becomes uninhabitable.

Which is especially true for a country that is mostly coastal areas, i.e. Australia. Which is specifically what she was talking about. To be fair, See Noevo is just parroting the ignorance of the National Review, who are heavy into AGW denial.

See Noevo@1300

“Black lives matter! Don’t defund Planned Parenthood!”

Amusingly, this one actually makes sense. By increasing access to and education about contraceptives in low income areas (where African Americans are unforunately overrepresented) Planned Parenthood actually does have a positive impact on black lives. That's not quite the what is meant by the "Black lives matter!" slogan but it still works I think. There's also the interesting correlation between Row v. Wade and decreased crime rates. Personally I don't think there's causation but hey there's better data for that than literally any of See Noevo's positions.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Neovo “Black lives matter!"

Stop pretending, See. Since 774, you made it clear it's only the Caucasian catholic babies you care about. As you explained to us, the other babies are a threat to your culture. From your point of view, they may as well die.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

Or maybe they were dirty lefties all along too, like the Pope?

The DOD quietly released a study on nation-building a few years later stating out that access to affordable healthcare was a key component of long-term stability. Obviously the work of leftists.

There's a certain grim humor to the way the right fawns on the military until the military disagrees with them.

shay@1304

There’s a certain grim humor to the way the right fawns on the military until the military disagrees with them.

Same thing they do with the church. I was reading some articles on the pope's encyclical and conservatives seem to be universally in agreement with See Noevo (actually it's probably the other way around). The "because church" argument loses a lot of weight when it's only when they agree with your beliefs.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

Rumor is that Naomi and ann are coming out with some new T-shirt slogans:

“Hands up, don’t shoot! Don’t deny climate change!”

“Black lives matter! Don’t defund Planned Parenthood!”

“Racism ain’t cool. Stop heating the planet!”

Just pausing to note that SN is apparently under the impression that hating on the Pope and the teachings of the Church is A-OK, as long as you're nominally using proxies.

The encyclical doesn't limit it to race, because he's talking about the whole world, not just Australia. But he agrees with Naomi Klein:

Many of the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited. For example, changes in climate, to which animals and plants cannot adapt, lead them to migrate; this in turn affects the livelihood of the poor, who are then forced to leave their homes, with great uncertainty for their future and that of their children. There has been a tragic rise in the number of migrants seeking to flee from the growing poverty caused by environmental degradation. They are not recognized by international conventions as refugees; they bear the loss of the lives they have left behind, without enjoying any legal protection whatsoever. Sadly, there is widespread indifference to such suffering, which is even now taking place throughout our world.

To say nothing of contempt and scorn. But I guess it's SN's prudential judgment that mocking the afflicted is a truer expression of faith.

To ann #1306:

Pope Francis: “Many of the poor live in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming, and their means of subsistence are largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry. They have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited…
Sadly, there is widespread indifference to such suffering, which is even now taking place throughout our world.”

Ann: “To say nothing of contempt and scorn. But I guess it’s SN’s prudential judgment that mocking the afflicted is a truer expression of faith.”

No. (I think that’s 0-for-14.)
I have scorn for certain of the poor’s “saviors” – the sinister, science-y socialists and their stupid sycophants.

I may not be able to get a few minutes to talk face-to-face with Pope Francis next month. But maybe I’ll get a chance to slip a letter into his hand. I’m going to draft one right now:
…………………
DRAFT – DRAFT
Dear Pope Francis,
1)Since global warming/climate change is world-wide, aren’t poor and rich alike living in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming?
2)And aren’t all of us, not just the poor, largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry?
3) When you say the poor have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited,
does this exclude the billions or trillions of dollars the U.S. has sent to places like Africa?
4)When you say - changes in climate, to which animals and plants cannot adapt, lead them to migrate; this in turn affects the livelihood of the poor, who are then forced to leave their homes, with great uncertainty for their future and that of their children –
are you saying evolution’s animals and plants actually CAN adapt, in the sense of at least moving, but people can NOT?

P.S.
I liked your words on the big “A” (abortion) in paragraph 120 of Laudato Si’. But I was wondering about your warnings about the little “a” in paragraph 55:
“People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behaviour, which at times appears self-destructive.”

Specifically, is air-conditioning inherently evil? If it’s not, but rather is only sometimes evil, would it be when I have it set at 68 degrees or 72 degrees or my current 75 degrees, and where does the venial sin start?

You faithful fellow Catholic,
See Noevo

DRAFT – DRAFT
……………………
I said above that if I scorn anyone on this topic, it’s certain of the poor’s “saviors” – the sinister, science-y socialists and their stupid sycophants. That’s a lot of “s”es, but I’ll add another:
the “Sensitive”. You know, those liberals who say their hearts are bigger than conservatives', and who think their public proclamations of greater empathy/concern justify whatever hellish “solution” they want to enforce (and if a conservative disagrees with their solution then the conservatives must hate the poor, and also be racist eugenicists, etc.)

Not that sensitivity, per se, is a bad thing. It can be great. And even make for a good song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GStdIzreUyM

P.S.
As far as 3) and 4) above, regardless of how you feel about the issues, some skits are just funny:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0q4o58pKwA

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

shay@1304

Ann: “To say nothing of contempt and scorn. But I guess it’s SN’s prudential judgment that mocking the afflicted is a truer expression of faith.”

No. (I think that’s 0-for-14.)

And then...

1) Since global warming/climate change is world-wide, aren’t poor and rich alike living in areas particularly affected by phenomena related to warming?
2) And aren’t all of us, not just the poor, largely dependent on natural reserves and ecosystemic services such as agriculture, fishing and forestry?
3) When you say the poor have no other financial activities or resources which can enable them to adapt to climate change or to face natural disasters, and their access to social services and protection is very limited,
does this exclude the billions or trillions of dollars the U.S. has sent to places like Africa?

To be fair, that's dripping with not just scorn but also plain old stupidity. Do you really think that in areas where basic resources (i.e. clean water, food, medical supplies, etc) are already scare that reducing resources further will help? The stakes are different asshat. We might have to give up our Netflix subscriptions to keep the lights on. In places where people already have to choose between food or medicine they might lose access to both. You are the entitled, privledged white male personified. Didn't Christ preach goodwill? You don't hold a single belief that isn't entirely self-serving.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

Crap, forgot to fix the To: line in #1308. Pretty obviously not directed at shay@1304 but rather See Noevo@1307.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

“People may well have a growing ecological sensitivity but it has not succeeded in changing their harmful habits of consumption which, rather than decreasing, appear to be growing all the more. A simple example is the increasing use and power of air-conditioning. The markets, which immediately benefit from sales, stimulate ever greater demand. An outsider looking at our world would be amazed at such behaviour, which at times appears self-destructive.”

Specifically, is air-conditioning inherently evil?

He can't even quote the Pope without inventing what the man said.

It's uncanny how See Noevo seems to never miss a chance to be wrong and make an ass of himself.

I have scorn for certain of the poor’s “saviors” – the sinister, science-y socialists and their stupid sycophants.

FTFY.

I may not be able to get a few minutes to talk face-to-face with Pope Francis next month. But maybe I’ll get a chance to slip a letter into his hand.

Congratulations, the desperation of your attention-whoring has now reached the level of delusionality exemplified by Tutu's "I'm going to drive to the CDC and talk to Thompson" classic. Face it, you're a demonstrated, blustering coward of the first water.

Dear Pope Francis,

Colossal fail.

Most of this thread has dealt with issues of life and death at the earliest stages of life.
Some, like me and the Pope, believe that human life must be respected and valued from conception until natural death.

And we also believe that dis-respect at any stage of life can ultimately result in dis-respect at all stages.
This dis-respect tends to manifest itself first at the fringes. We’ve seen the results of dis-respect at the start of life, the first “fringe.”
Here’s a piece from today’s WSJ on the last “fringe”:
…………………….
A Doctor-Assisted Disaster for Medicine
As a physician in Oregon, I have seen the dire effect of assisted-suicide laws on patients and my profession.

By William L. Toffler
Aug. 17, 2015 7:11 p.m. ET

Since the voters of Oregon narrowly legalized physician-assisted suicide 20 years ago, there has been a profound shift in attitude toward medical care—new fear and secrecy, and a fixation on death. Well over 850 people have taken their lives by ingesting massive overdoses of barbiturates prescribed under the law. Proponents claim the system is working well with no problems. This is not true.

As a professor of family medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, as well as a licensed physician for 35 years, I have seen firsthand how the law has changed the relationship between doctors and patients, some of whom now fear that they are being steered toward assisted suicide.

In one case a patient with bladder cancer contacted me. She was concerned that an oncologist treating her might be one of the “death doctors,” and she questioned his motives. This was particularly worrying to her after she obtained a second opinion from another oncologist who was more positive about her prognosis and treatment options. Whichever of the consultants was correct, such fears were never an issue before.

Under Oregon’s law, a patient can request lethal drugs only if he has a terminal illness and less than six months to live. However, it is nearly impossible to predict the course of an illness six months out, and many patients given such prognoses live full, rewarding lives long past six months.

The law requires that patients be referred for psychological examination if the doctor suspects they have depression or mental illness. But some doctors see suicide as a solution to suffering and depression as rational given patients’ circumstances. Last year only three of the 105 patients who died under the law were referred for a psychological exam.

A 2008 study published in the British Medical Journal examined 58 Oregonians who sought information on assisted suicide. Of them, 26% met the criteria for depressive disorder, and 22% for anxiety disorder. Three of the depressed individuals received and ingested the lethal drugs, dying within two months of being interviewed. The study’s authors concluded that Oregon’s law “may not adequately protect all mentally ill patients.”

Also concerning are the regular notices I receive indicating that many important services and drugs for my patients—even some pain medications—will not be covered by the Oregon Health Plan, the state’s Medicaid program. Yet physician-assisted suicide is covered by the state and our collective tax dollars. Supporters claim physician-assisted suicide gives patients choice, but what sort of a choice is it when life is expensive but death is free?

A shroud of secrecy envelops the practice of assisted suicide. Doctors engaging in it do not accurately report the actual manner of death. Instead they are required by state law to fabricate the death certificate, stating that the cause is “natural” rather than suicide. In late 1997, right before assisted suicide was about to begin, the state legislature implemented a system of two different death certificates—one that is public and includes no medical information and another that is kept private by the state. As a result, no one outside of the Oregon Health Division knows precisely how many assisted suicides have taken place, because accurately tracking them has been made impossible.

In my practice, more than two dozen patients have discussed assisted suicide with me. Most did not have a terminal diagnosis. One inquiry came from a patient with a progressive form of multiple sclerosis. He was in a wheelchair yet lived an active life as a general contractor. I asked him how the disease affected his life. He acknowledged that MS was a major challenge and told me that if he got too much worse, he might want to “just end it.”

I told him I could understand his fear and frustration and even his belief that assisted suicide might be a good option. I also told him that should he become sicker or weaker, I would work to provide him the best care and support available. No matter how debilitated he might become, his life was, and would always be, inherently valuable. As such, I said that would I not recommend nor would I participate in his suicide. He simply replied: “Thank you.”

The way that physicians respond to patients’ requests for lethal drugs has a profound effect on their choices and their view of themselves and their inherent worth. Such patients deserve doctors who will support them through their illnesses, not offer them a quick exit.

One of the most troubling notions I hear is that killing oneself with sleeping pills is “dignified”—as if natural deaths aren’t. Last year my wife, Marlene, died of metastatic cancer. We’d been married for 40 years. The final five years we both knew she would inevitably die of her cancer. At one point doctors told her that she had only three to nine months left, yet she lived more than four times as long.

While I treasure all of our years together, the last years of our marriage were among the best. There was great suffering but also great joy and meaning in the special moments we and our seven children shared together—moments that became all the more special the closer we came to the end of her life. I wouldn’t trade a nanosecond of those last years. She died peacefully and naturally at home surrounded by her family and friends. She never took an overdose, yet her death and life had great dignity.

Some two dozen suicide bills have been introduced in legislatures around the country, from California to Maine. These states should heed the example of Oregon, where assisted suicide has been detrimental to patients, degraded the quality of medical care, and compromised the integrity of the medical profession.

There are some encouraging signs. In 2012 an assisted-suicide referendum narrowly failed in Massachusetts by two percentage points. The California senate passed a suicide bill in June, but it stalled in the state assembly after opposition to it mounted.

As a society we should continue to reject the legalization of physician-assisted suicide as a solution to suffering. Instead we must work to increase access to hospice and palliative care to better support those suffering from terminal illness. The sick and aging deserve better than Oregon’s mistake.

Dr. Toffler is the national director of Physicians for Compassionate Care.
........................

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

Back to the first "fringe"...

You’ve heard of discrimination based on gender.
How about death based on gender?

From another piece in today’s WSJ, this one titled
“Fertility Clinics Let You Select Your Baby’s Sex
(Parents with two or three children of one sex may want a child of the opposite sex)”:

“About one out of five couples who come to HRC Fertility, a network of fertility clinics in Southern California, doesn’t need help getting pregnant. Instead, they come for what is called family balancing, or nonmedical sex selection. “They usually have one, two or three children of one gender” and want their next child to be of the other sex, said Daniel Potter, medical director of HRC Fertility, which includes nine clinics.

… Nonmedical sex selection is a controversial practice legal in only a few countries, including the U.S. and Mexico. Medical organizations and fertility specialists are split on the issue. No agency tracks the numbers of procedures performed.

… A 2008 study in the journal Fertility and Sterility found in an online survey that among U.S. clinics that offered PGD, 42% would do it for nonmedical sex selection…

… But the ethics committee of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which represents women’s health-care providers, reaffirmed last year a committee opinion opposing the practice of sex selection for personal and family reasons.

… Arthur Caplan, director of the division of medical ethics at New York University School of Medicine, said family balancing can become a smoke screen for families who want boys. “When you are treating the fertile in order to produce something that they prefer as opposed to a disease, I do think you’re really opening the door to a potential slope toward eugenics,” Dr. Caplan said.

… Nearly 90% of patients seen at the Fertility Institutes’ three centers have no fertility problem and come for family balancing, said Jeffrey Steinberg, the medical director. The centers are known for sex-selection services and impose no restrictions, even for a woman’s first pregnancy, he said.

All patients at Reproductive Medicine Institute receive extensive counseling on IVF, Dr. Trukhacheva said. There might be a slight increase in risk for breast and ovarian cancers, she said, but most likely only if a patient goes through multiple IVF cycles. There is also a very slight increase in risk for having a child with certain disabilities."

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

This thread seems to have a definite tendency to go where I say it’s going to go,
and even more so, to continue if I say it’s going to continue.

This is most immediately evident to our short-term memory, by easily recalling the content of the most recent posts.

But this has really been the case from the start.
This thread was probably destined to die at a dozen or two comments, as virtually everyone here agrees with the viewpoint of the subject article.
But this thread is now over 1300 comments and still going, because of me.

Don’t believe it? Want me to cite some sources?
OK. You can test them yourselves, because they’re right in front of you.
I addressed this somewhat in #1119.

Today, I tested another sample of 30 consecutive comments, starting with my debut at #23. I made 5 comments, others made 25. Of the 25 comments by others, at least 18 (72%) were about me or my comments.

And the beat goes on...
apparently, because See Noevo, and only See Noevo, is setting the beat.

It was true on July 27 and it’s still true today, August 18.

As it was 48 years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bS3O5zg290k

Dig it. Far out.

You’re not going anywhere.
‘Cause you got me, babe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80QHRTQ3Kmw

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

Here’s a piece from today’s WSJ on the last “fringe"

Yes, S.N. has not just again resorted to trying to change the subject but has also been reduced to copy-and-paste blobs. At least this time – unlike "Muslim Demographics" – he didn't try to hide his source.

Again, attention-whoring coward of the first water and all-around hypocritical parasite.

I can't even tell if SN has a point beyond playing "is not!" "is too!" "I like the sound of my own voice!" any more.

By Emma Crew (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

SN has tried to stir things up on a couple of other blogs, with noticeably less effect. There's no point in trying to get in a fight with anyone on The Pump Handle - hardly anyone ever comments.

By JustaTech (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

I have been sitting back with popcorn and a large soft drink, once a day, reading these comments. Haven't had this kind of amusement since I frequented the Christian Online Message Boards on AOL, a generation ago. But I do have to make one comment: "Dear Pope Francis??" Seriously? I learned how to address a letter to the Pope when I was in First Communion classes in 1954. I know there have been many changes in the RCC since I crossed over the Tiber, but I wasn't aware that one of them was to eliminate the traditional salutation in a letter to the Pope. "Most Holy Father" or "Your Holiness" are the salutations I recall. Although perhaps it's different for special snowflakes who are more Roman Catholic than the Bishop of Rome?

Two-Thirds Majority in Ireland Want Abortion Decriminalized

...The poll also found that 70% of respondents agree that women have an international human right to an abortion when their pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, where their life or health is at risk, or in cases of fatal fetal impairment. On June 24, 2015 the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights reiterated this right when it called on Ireland to revise its abortion laws to bring them in line with international human rights standards.

“81% percent of people were in favor of access to abortion beyond the current Irish legal position. This comprises the 36% who believe abortion should be allowed where the woman’s life is at risk, the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest, where the woman’s health is at risk, or where there is a fatal fetal abnormality, and the 45% who would go further and allow women to access abortion as they choose. 9% were in favor of access just where the woman’s life is at risk, the current legal position,” said Bryan Cox, director at Red C Research and Marketing.

Kansas Abortion Clinic Evacuated After Man Is Caught Trying To Bring In Bomb

The Wichita Police Department says that a man is in custody after he brought knives and an improvised explosive device into the Kansas abortion clinic that was previously operated by Dr. George Tiller, who was gunned down by an anti-abortion activist in 2009.

The South Wind Women’s Health Center, which opened to the public in 2013 after the building was closed for several years following Tiller’s murder, was temporarily evacuated on Monday afternoon after security officials found knives and a small bomb in a man’s backpack.

No one was harmed, though a police spokesperson said that the small explosive device was set to explode and could have been dangerous if it had not been removed. Wichita police, along with the FBI, are now investigating the potential bomb threat.

“Today, our staff and local law enforcement handled a threat to the safety of our patients and staff promptly and effectively. The systems that we have in place to protect our patients and staff worked,” Julie Burkhart, who runs the clinic, said in a statement.

Burkhart is no stranger to potential safety threats, and has spoken openly about the fact that tightening security at her clinic was one of her top concerns before she re-opened it to the public two years ago. Just a few weeks after she opened South Wind — which does not offer abortion services as late into pregnancy as Tiller used to provide them — one anti-abortion activist suggested that it would be “a blessing to the babies” if someone shot Burkhart in the same way that Tiller was killed. A few months later, a different right-wing activist alleged that Burkhart’s goal was to “provoke” gun violence at her workplace.

More at link.

Blithely thinking that he is truly yanking us around, Mr Noevo doesn't seem to understand that Orac's minions are only too pleased to allow him to stretch out a thread beyond all reasonability because

- we appreciate that Orac will be awarded special gifts from ' our benefactor'** for any threads that accumulate more than 600 comments
- regular commenters- who are chosen by an arcane method of which only *cognoscenti scientiae bloggeria* are aware- will receive their own rewards for any threads that go beyond 1000.
So type away, dude. Knock yourself out
.
I need some new silk scarves. Prada maybe.

** his scaly majesty himself

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

Cheers, Ellie!

SN probably wanted you to say that, though. He's Yertle the Turtle, don't forget.

There’s been more discussion in this thread than one might otherwise anticipate on the subject of definitions and dictionaries.

Someone should get the Margaret Sanger Award-winning Dem Dream Gal a dictionary, to help her with “wipe”. [She sure is “funny”, though. LOL.]
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/18/the-shrug-heard-roun…

OMG! Now I’m ROTFL!
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/08/17/hillary_clinton_jokes…

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

Are most of Planned Parenthood's clinics in black neighborhoods?

In 2014, the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health research center, surveyed all known abortion providers, including Planned Parenthood clinics, in the U.S. (nearly 2,000) and found that 60 percent are in majority-white neighborhoods.,/b>

More at link, including a non-deranged precis of Margaret Sanger's involvement with eugenics.

Planned Parenthood has not released numbers on the neighborhoods of its specific clinics, but responding to a request for demographic information, the organization said that in 2013, 14 percent of its patients nationwide were black. That's nearly equal to the proportion of the African-American population in the U.S.

Epic tag fail.

To ann #1320:

“<blockquote Catholics around the world more liberal than Vatican
(65% say that abortion should be allowed in some or all cases; 78% support the use of contraception.)”

[Block quote] translation: Most people may be going to hell.
["Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Mat 7:13-14;
“And some one said to him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" And he said to them, “Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”” Luke 13:23-24]

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

@ #1322

I predicted this back in #31.

No, trolling is its thing.

We may be looking at another 1000 comment thread.

Do I win something?

Also, and off topic (like that matters in this thread), can anyone tell me how one gets promoted from a volunteer "pharma dupe" role to a paid "pharma shill" position?

Why Climate Change Affects Poor Neighborhoods Most -- (Time, Oct. 2014)

Climate Change: The Poor Will Suffer Most (The Guardian, March 2014)

And just to show how long this news has been "unorthodox":

Rich, poor and climate change (CNN, February 2008)

Although there's also a wiki entry on Climate change and poverty, for those who don't need to go running to the Pope whenever they get a runny nose.

^^That was more rudely phrased, initially. But I changed it out of courtesy to the Pope.

[Block quote] translation: Most people may be going to hell.

"And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of [G-d] should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of [G-d] cometh not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of [G-d] is within you."

Except in S.N.'s case, in which immanence is replaced by "the more transcendent, the better."

To Ellie #1318:

Cheers, Ellie!

Your name reminded me of a similar one,
Elie Wiesel - Holocaust survivor, author, and Nobel Prize winner.

Here are some words Elie wrote, perhaps between his popcorn and large soft drink…

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”

“There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win. ”

“For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.”

“I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”

“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.”

“Only the guilty are guilty. Their children are not.”

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference…. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”

“Which is worse? Killing with hate or killing without hate?”
…………………
Those last two quotes in particular made me think of something JGC said in #974:

Me: “So, even by YOUR standards, the life in a woman’s womb at 23 or 24 weeks gestation COULD “represent” a human being.”

JGC: “That’s correct—it could.”

But JGC (and all the others here, and maybe you) is OK with killing it.
Oh, not necessarily killing out of hate.
Maybe just indifference.

P.S.
Enjoy your popcorn and large soft drink, Ellie. You only live once.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

The Rise of the DIY Abortion in Texas

A pill that revolutionized reproductive rights in Latin America is now gaining ground on the black market in South Texas.
_______________

The Alamo flea market sits right off South Texas’s lengthy Highway 83, a sprawling, dusty, labyrinth of a place. Under canopies in the converted parking lot, vendors in dark sunglasses stand behind tables heaped with piles of clothing, barking in Spanish and hawking their wares. The air is hot and muggy, thick with the scent of grilled corn and chili.

Customers browse simple items—miracle-diet teas, Barbie dolls, or turquoise jeans stretched over curvy mannequins—but there are also shoppers scanning the market for goods that aren't displayed in the stalls. Tables lined with bottles of medicine like Tylenol and NyQuil have double meanings to those in the know: The over-the-counter drugs on top provide cover for the prescription drugs smuggled over the border from nearby cities in Mexico. Those, the dealer keeps out of sight.

I’m here to look for a small, white, hexagonal pill called misoprostol. Also known as miso or Cytotec, the drug induces an abortion that appears like a miscarriage during the early stages of a woman’s pregnancy. For women living in Latin America and other countries that have traditionally outlawed abortion, miso has been a lifeline—it’s been called “a noble medication,” “world-shaking,” and “revolutionary.” But now, it’s not just an asset of the developing world.

Info following the scenic lede at link.

I have two versions of the same post in moderation, due to a surplus of links. But just post the first one, please.

Thanks and apologies.

Jeezums. I don't know exactly what that is on display in comment #1314, bu it's a doozy. A naked id, I suppose; I guess SN has seen fit to open his trenchcoat and display it for all the world to see. I don't know if I've ever seen anything so... blatant... here before.

@ DGR:

Although I REALLY shouldn't tell you..

They like you very much.

I expect they'll send Sean to meet you when you least expect it- probably outside your place of business.. He's a tall, heavy-set fellow- rather handsome although he's losing his hair. He'll be driving a small, yellow Japanese sports car.
You'll like Sean because he's

By Denice Walter (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

I Am Against Fanatics": A Dialogue Between Elie Wiesel and Merle Hoffman on Abortion, Love and the Holocaust

You have said that you are uncomfortable with the violence of the abortion debate, but when John Cardinal O'Connor first came to New York he held a press conference in which he stated that legal abortion was the "Second Holocaust." How do you feel about abortion being likened to the genocidal slaughter of the Jews?

I am uncomfortable with the language of this debate. I resent the violence of the language the words that they use like Holocaust no it is not a Holocaust. It is blasphemy to reduce a tragedy of such monumental proportions to this human tragedy, and abortion is a human tragedy. What should be done is to give back the human proportion to the abortion issue, and when we see it as such we may be able to have much more understanding for the woman who chooses it.

Women who choose abortion are consistently labeled killers, and I personally have been compared to Hitler and called a great murderer.

A woman who feels she cannot go on, and with pain and despair she decides that she has to give up her child, is this woman a killer? Really really. But look, you cannot let these words hurt you. You have to be strong not to pay any attention because those who do that call you a Hitler and relate it to the Holocaust prove that they do not know what the Holocaust was.

More from the dialogue linked by ann in #1335:

Elie: “I am uncomfortable with the language of this debate. I resent the violence of the language the words that they use like Holocaust no it is not a Holocaust. It is blasphemy to reduce a tragedy of such monumental proportions to this human tragedy, and ABORTION IS A HUMAN TRAGEDY. What should be done is to give back the human proportion to the abortion issue, and when we see it as such we may be able to have much more understanding for the woman who chooses it.”

Questioner: “But you have said that you feel abortion is a tragedy. Why?”

Elie: “For me the tragedy is for the mother, and there is a father involved also. I DON’T THINK THAT MUCH ABOUT THE CHILD. I HAVEN’T THOUGHT ABOUT THE CHILD.
I HAVE TO THINK IT THROUGH. I cannot believe that there is a mother who does it lightheartedly. I simply cannot believe it. For the mother, it's difficult, very difficult, it must be. Therefore, once you accept that it is difficult, then it requires more thinking, more soul-searching. AS FOR THE CHILD AND THE QUESTION OF WHEN A IS A CHILD A CHILD, THIS IS A DIFFERENT SUBJECT WHICH HAS TO BE DEALT WITH but for the moment we are dealing with the mother; if she comes to the conclusion that she cannot have this child for whatever reason, then it is a tragedy.”

Yes, you better think it through, old Elie.
But no rush. It’s just 2 or 3 thousand more tragic terminations every day in the U.S.

Take your time.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

DGR@1328

Also, and off topic (like that matters in this thread), can anyone tell me how one gets promoted from a volunteer “pharma dupe” role to a paid “pharma shill” position?

If you have to ask you're not ready yet.

See Noevo@1330
You're really going to start quoting Elie Wiesel? Besides indifference he also speaks out against intolerance (like the garbage you spew).

"In any society, fanatics who hate don't hate only me - they hate you, too. They hate everybody."

"Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone - and, ultimately, hating himself or herself."

"Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe."

And I think most poignantly:

"No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them."

How does this relate to me you ask? Recall what you said in #755:

But there’s at least one people that hasn’t had a shortage of babies. They actually appear to look at their fertility, in part, as a world-conquering weapon (time 4:45):

Yup, that would be a collective judgement.

Come on man, you can't say something like, "[t]hat’s pretty impressive for a secular Jewish atheist!" then quote Elie Wiesel in support of your beliefs.

It's interesting that instead of making actual responses See Noevo just moves on to new material. Interspersed with declarations of his continuing vicctory. He's the gift that keeps on giving.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

Did SN just respond to Elie Wiesel's request for him to get his grubby, racist, semi-literate eugenicist hands off the Holocaust by attempting to school him on human tragedy?

Or am I seeing things?

Quite a bit of talk here about the poor, and my alleged scorn for them. In #1307, I said that if I scorn anyone on this topic, it’s certain of the poor’s “saviors” – the sinister, science-y socialists and their stupid sycophants,
and the “Sensitive” - those liberals who say their hearts are bigger than conservatives’, and who think their public proclamations of greater empathy/concern justify whatever hellish “solution” they want to enforce (and if a conservative disagrees with their solution then the conservatives must hate the poor, and also be racist eugenicists, etc.).

I thought of the “Sensitive” and their “solutions”, particularly those Big Government “solutions”, in reading this story today:

“A family of four in New York City makes $497,911 a year but pays $1,574 a month to live in public housing in a three-bedroom apartment subsidized by taxpayers.

"In Los Angeles, a family of five that’s lived in public housing since 1974 made $204,784 last year but paid $1,091 for a four-bedroom apartment. And a tenant with assets worth $1.6 million — including stocks, real estate and retirement accounts — last year paid $300 for a one-bedroom apartment in public housing in Oxford, Neb.

"In a new report, the watchdog for the Department of Housing and Urban Development describes these and more than 25,000 other “over income” families earning more than the maximum income for government-subsidized housing as an “egregious” abuse of the system.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/08/17/a-family-…

And I thought: Only over 25,000 abuses? Gee, I wonder if the HUD reporting on failures in their sensitive system might be understating the extent of abuse in their system?

Maybe if we do something about climate change this problem will go away.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noevo@1342

And I thought: Only over 25,000 abuses? Gee, I wonder if the HUD reporting on failures in their sensitive system might be understating the extent of abuse in their system?

So because some people with means abuse the system we should punish those who rely on it by shutting it down entirely. It's like you think public housing is just luxury apartments at bargain prices. You can say you do not scorn the poor but this is exactly the shit that leads us to believe otherwise. I'd say come down from your ivory tower and take a look at the real world but I imagine your idealogy would blind you anyways.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

me@1340

It’s interesting that instead of making actual responses See Noevo just moves on to new material. Interspersed with declarations of his continuing vicctory.

And right on cue...
See Noevo@1343

To ann #1341:

Oh, archbishop ann,

oh, ann of repute ** ….

You’re 0-for-15 or more.

Seriously, are you doing this on purpose?

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything so… blatant… here before.

It's a holdover from asshurt at EvolutionBlog, although I do seem to recall Z. pulling the "this thread would have been nothing without ME!" card before.

S.N. tends to run away pretty quickly when the only people responding to him are men. Same old, same old.

^ And now he's just posting random shіt because nobody gives a fυck about him at Disqustink, he can't actually think, and he doesn't have anybody who wants him to come to bed.

"The danger of having too few babies," indeed.

See Noevo@1342

And I thought: Only over 25,000 abuses? Gee, I wonder if the HUD reporting on failures in their sensitive system might be understating the extent of abuse in their system?

So because some people with means abuse the system we should punish those who rely on it by shutting it down entirely. It's like you think public housing is just luxury apartments at bargain prices. You can say you do not scorn the poor but this is exactly the shit that leads us to believe otherwise. I'd say come down from your ivory tower and take a look at the real world but I imagine your idealogy would keep you blinded regardless of where you're standing.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

But this thread is now over 1300 comments and still going, because of me.

Because all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Heh. Every comment little weasel horks up here is another doctor not shot in the back.

And every time a door slams, an angel is set on fire.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 18 Aug 2015 #permalink

This thread seems to have a definite tendency to go where I say it’s going to go,

Maybe to the presentation of eight full quotes showing support for abortions in all cases, or a formal recantation? Dishonest creep.

And I thought: Only over 25,000 abuses? Gee, I wonder if the HUD reporting on failures in their sensitive system might be understating the extent of abuse in their system?

Like the Roman Catholic Church? Oh, wait, they tried to keep it totally secret while also acting to perpetuate it.

@Ellie #1318

“Dear Pope Francis??” Seriously? I learned how to address a letter to the Pope when I was in First Communion classes in 1954. I know there have been many changes in the RCC since I crossed over the Tiber, but I wasn’t aware that one of them was to eliminate the traditional salutation in a letter to the Pope. “Most Holy Father” or “Your Holiness” are the salutations I recall. Although perhaps it’s different for special snowflakes who are more Roman Catholic than the Bishop of Rome?"

To be fair to SN, I probably wouldn't have done any better. If I had to write a letter to the pope it would probably go something like "Wussup Pope", but then again I'm not a Roman Catholic. Not anymore anyway.

Slow news day.

Then why not use the spare time to man up and account for the lies you've spewed?

It’s interesting that instead of making actual responses See Noevo just moves on to new material. Interspersed with declarations of his continuing vicctory.

I don't really mind the constant change of subject, because it's obvious it's his way of conceding the point, and silently and cowardly admitting defeat.

The elaculations of victory are sort of icing on the cake - imagine the worst, most awkward stage magician puffing talcum powder to "hide" pulling a dirty plushie rabbit with a single button eye remaining from behind the secret hatch in his cardboard top hat.

Actually, the reason I think SN is a racist is that he says things like:

Wha, ann-abelle!
I do declare! Did you just write fuh thuh whole wide world to see that See Noevo be talkin ‘bout ‘subjects about which he’s COMPLETELY IGNORANT on the internet’?

Missy ann-abelle, doesn’t “completely ignorant” mean 100% ignorant?
Oh my, Missy ann-abelle! Duh ya think thas fair? Mightn’t that be what you called… wha was it now… oh, an “an offense against the truth”?

and

Take our Al Sharpton (Please!), who was ordained a Pentecostal minister at the age of 10.
Rumor is that ancient Al’s going back to school for an advanced degree in meteorology,
and that the N.A.A.C.P. and The New Black Panthers will cover his tuition costs.

The reason I think he's a eugenicist is that he says things like:

In the last 30 years, the Muslim population of Great Britain rose from 82,000 to 2.5 million…

In the Netherlands, 50% of all newborns are Muslim. And in only 15 years, half of the population of the Netherlands will be Muslim…

Which means to him that there are "too few babies."

And the reason I think he scorns the poor is that he does.

the sinister, science-y socialists and their stupid sycophants,

SN's debate and elocution coach revealed!

It looks like SN has listened a bit to much to a certain very blonde (not his own hair color) Dutch politician. I have my doubts about those figures about the Dutch population.

Some people just never disappoint. I comment on the inappropriate salutation in a letter addressed to the Pope, and the response is, rather than addressing that comment, tossing out quotes from someone with a similar name and misusing those quotes. Some things change over the course of 20 years. Others, sadly remain the same.

SN, I will only live once in this life, but forever in the next.

Ann@1323 Yes, I have noticed that.

Now I'll go back to lurking with my popcorn and soft drink.

Then why not use the spare time to man up and account for the lies you’ve spewed?

SN can't do that because he's always the victim, it's never his fault. Funny how often these personal-responsibility types turn out to be like that.

But as long as we're at it, JGC's been waiting for something besides an argument from potential since #1166.

At least he's not being a big crybaby about it.

I’m wondering why brainiac JGC hasn’t given any response, let alone a substantive response, to my lengthy #1026.

Though.

To ann #1357:

“Actually, the reason I think SN is a racist… a eugenicist… he scorns the poor…”

Why anna, yuh don’ts thank so gud…
I mean, you’re thinking is even worse than I thought.

You’re now 0-for-19.
Don’t you know that old saying: ‘If you’re unhappy in your hole, then stop digging’ ?
……….
P.S.
Ben Carson/Carly Fiorina is quite a dream team (#1187) for a racist misogynist, don’t ya think?
No, of course you don’t.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

“I have been sitting back with popcorn and a large soft drink, once a day, reading these comments…
I learned how to address a letter to the Pope when I was in First Communion classes in 1954. I know there have been many changes in the RCC since I crossed over the Tiber…
Now I’ll go back to lurking with my popcorn and soft drink.”

That’s a lot of popcorn and soft drinks, even for a lurker.
And when you “crossed the Tiber” was it to go to the “other” side?

Oh, Lord, I fear Ellie may now have a weight problem AND be Protestant.

I shall pray for Ellie.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noevo@1342

Don’t you know that old saying: ‘If you’re unhappy in your hole, then stop digging’ ?

And around the world there was a stunned silence. From that day on August 19 would forever be remembered as the day all the irony meters worldwide broke.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

Ben Carson/Carly Fiorina is quite a dream team (#1187) for a racist misogynist, don’t ya think?

Yes, supporting a political candidate because he ocppies the same narrow political demographic, completely counterbalances/negates any impression the Stepin Fetchit imitation, above, might have given.

Schure.

Ben Carson/Carly Fiorina is quite a dream team (#1187) for a racist misogynist, don’t ya think?

Of course, she has to be second banana, because comments 237241 at EvolutionBlog (where he once again was trying to randomly change the subject).

I learned how to address a letter to the Pope when I was in First Communion classes in 1954.

Sad to see anyone wasting their twilight years trolling the web with nonsense and making a fool out of themselves in the process and remaining totally oblivious to their doing so.

But, each to their own, I guess.

PS. I liked Ben Carson better when he was Cuba Gooding Jr.

Oh, Lord, I fear Ellie may now have a weight problem AND be Protestant.

Look! It's trying to make a joke.

Awwww....it's so cute when it tries to be funny. Although if SN pulls out the blackface and white makeup to go with the routine I'm asking for a refund.

I'm actually not sure if SN is trying to be "Southern" or Black when he abuses ann. But, in the old Southern way, I'll just say "Bless his heart".

(Yeah, VERY Southern roots here, I do know what I am talking about, even though I grew up in the North.)

Let’s see, where shall I take this thread today?

I know!

“I want you to see something kinda cool. This is kinda neat.” [She says.] So I’m over here, and . . . the moment I see it, I’m just flabbergasted. This is the most gestated fetus and the closest thing to a baby I’ve seen. And she is, like, “Okay, I want to show you something.” So she has one of her instruments, and she just taps the heart, and it starts beating. And I’m sitting here, and I’m looking at this fetus, and its heart is beating, and I don’t know what to think. . . . She’s, like, “Do you know why that’s happening?” And I knew why that was happening. It’s because the electrical current — the nodes were still firing. And I don’t know if that constitutes . . . it’s technically dead, or it’s alive?
It had a face. It wasn’t completely torn up. It’s nose was very pronounced. It had eyelids. And its mouth was pronounced. And then since the fetus was so intact, she said, “Okay, this is a really good fetus, and it looks like we can procure a lot from it. We’re going to procure a brain. So . . . the moment I hear it . . . that means we’re going to have to cut its head open. We’re going to have to cut its head open. So, it’s, like, “Okay, so what you do is you go through the face.” I’m thinking, No I don’t want to do this. And she takes the scissors, and she makes a small incision right here [showing under her chin] and goes — I would say — to a little bit through the mouth. She’s, like, “Okay, can you go the rest of the way?” And I’m, like, [sighs] “Yes.” And I didn’t want to do this. And so she gave me the scissors and told me that I have to cut down the middle of the face. And I can’t even like describe like what that feels like.
I remember holding that fetus in my hands when everyone else was busy and started crying and opened the lid and put it back [in the jar.] It’s really hard knowing you’re the only person who’s ever going to hold that baby.”

[“Federal law defines “born alive” as “the complete expulsion or extraction from his or her mother of that member, at any stage of development, who after such expulsion or extraction breathes or has a beating heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord, or definite movement of voluntary muscles, regardless of whether the umbilical cord has been cut, and regardless of whether the expulsion or extraction occurs as a result of natural or induced labor, cesarean section, or induced abortion.” So, yes, “technically” that child was alive. California law is also clear: “The rights to medical treatment of an infant prematurely born alive in the course of an abortion shall be the same as the rights of an infant of similar medical status prematurely born spontaneously.” But that’s not what happened. StemExpress wanted to “procure a brain,” so the baby had to die in gruesome fashion…
Law enforcement should begin a murder investigation. Now. California Penal Code defines “murder” as the the “unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought.” And while the Code contains an exception for an abortion in compliance with California’s Therapeutic Abortion Act, slicing open the face of a born alive infant isn’t an “abortion” …
in other words, a person can be convicted of murdering a fetus even when that fetus probably can’t live outside the womb. But in this case we’re not dealing with a “fetus.” We’re dealing with a living baby, a “human being” under relevant law. Indeed, California Health and Safety Code calls him or her an “infant,” not a “fetus.” Moreover, what O’Donnell describes is no “mere” failure to render proper care — which would cause a baby to die from more or less natural causes — but rather the affirmative act of killing with scissors. That’s murder.”]

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/422746/infanticide-video-live-fet…

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

How about instead of quoting random web pages, you quote eight statements about supporting abortions in all cases? But you can't, lying creep, can you.

But at least it's another of See Noevo's ignoble acknowledgement of having lost the argument.

To shay #1364:

Me: “Ben Carson/Carly Fiorina is quite a dream team (#1187) for a racist misogynist, don’t ya think?”

You:“Yes, supporting a political candidate because he ocppies the same narrow political demographic, completely counterbalances/negates any impression the Stepin Fetchit imitation, above, might have given.”

Why, thank you, shay!
I don’t think you’ve ever complimented me before now.

Yes, I evaluate candidates, and people in general, on their thought and action, and NOT on their race or gender.
Just like how a great man said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Thanks again, shay.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

counterbalances/negates any impression the Stepin Fetchit imitation, above, might have given

I was trying to recall Pigmeat Markham's recurring nemesis (I haven't been keeping up with Blues Before Sunrise lately), but face it, he's too culturally illiterate to even get this.

The great irony would be if he thought he was doing an (atrocious) impersonation of Foghorn Leghorn, given that the character's inspiration was Senator Claghorn from the Fred Allen Show, i.e., a Dixiecrat.

And once again SN believes the BS because it suits his worldview.
As a clinician, I can't believe the lies in this article. A beating heart in a specimen that came out of a jar? and Wow, that must have been a pretty big jar if the fetus was big enough to hold "in ..hands" (plural).

Do these people actually BELIEVE this stuff? It's worse than the worst bad fiction on the internet.

SN: do yourself a favor. Google actual fetal development. Pay close attention to the SIZE of the specimen. PP doesn't do late term terminations. From the description, they are talking 16+ weeks, so either the specimen wasn't from PP or (which I believe more possible) the writer is lying through his teeth.

For someone who's so gung-ho about Catholic sexual morality, SN is strangely silent about this one:

Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."

For some reason.

I realize that I forgot to say why I think SN is semi-literate when listing my reasons for calling him a racist, eugenicist who scorns the poor.

Well.

Principally because he thinks a broadly comic satire about stereotyped views of Kentucky is a "serious satire" about incest, I guess.

But there's more than one reason, really.

ann, there was this (in #575)...

To AdamG #510:
“According to my religious beliefs and common sense, every single sperm cell is a baby, and any man who ejaculates is a murderer. Why do I have to follow your religion, but you don’t have to follow mine?”

I’d tell that person he’s free to believe what he wants, and even call it “religious,
but also that he has no common sense and is pathetically ignorant of science.

No doubt this is another example of Pope being misguided leftist ruining See Noevo's funtime: "golfing."

Why, thank you, shay!

Curious -- why would thanks be in order for giving him yet another opportunity to show how utterly tone-deaf he is?.

Yes, I evaluate candidates, and people in general, on their thought and action, and NOT on their race or gender.
Just like how a great man said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

And again.

Although this one might be closer.

Borked link above should be this.

To ann #1375:

Silent no more, archbishop annie!

I agree 100%.

How could a real Catholic NOT agree? They couldn’t.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1376:

“I realize that I forgot to say why I think SN is semi-literate when listing my reasons for calling him a racist, eugenicist who scorns the poor. Well. Principally because he thinks a broadly comic satire about stereotyped views of Kentucky is a “serious satire” about incest, I guess.”

Actually, I thought it was a satire about a serious subject.
Not all satires are about serious subjects.
But that one was a satire on a serious subject.
Or do you think the incest that Ashley Judd was talking about was funny, not serious?

“But there’s more than one reason, really.”

And there may be more than one reason why you didn’t mention my OTHER words from #1243:
“You [ann] were the first to bring up the subject of incest and abortion for pregnancies of incest (#1137).
The ENTIRE point of my subsequent words on incest was this:
YOU, ann, BELIEVE SUCH PRODUCTS OF INCEST (i.e. conceptions from incest) SHOULD BE ABORTED.
Closely tied to this main point, is that in AN ANN'S MIND, a now WALKING-TALKING PRODUCT OF INCEST SHOULD BE DEAD – should have been aborted.
And yes, there MUST be SOME such human beings, given our awareness of the real and far-to-common incidence of incest – *as evidenced by sorry tales from the silver screen although the way to “serious” satire”.”

You’re 0-for-20.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

Let’s see, where shall I take this thread today?

Now, this is genuine humor. It's not every day that one sees a creationist accidentally invoke Jesse Fuller with such ironic gusto.

PP doesn’t do late term terminations. From the description, they are talking 16+ weeks, so either the specimen wasn’t from PP or (which I believe more possible) the writer is lying through his teeth.

They do D&E after 16 weeks. But if that was the case, the fetus either wouldn't be intact; or it wouldn't have a brain.

She's probably lying about something, basically.

@ MI Dawn 1374

A beating heart in a specimen that came out of a jar?

Ah, a rerun of the horror movie from the start of this thread (155).
One assumes the jar was fitted with a tiny oxygen cylinder. And little wheels to move it around.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

Closely tied to this main point, is that in AN ANN’S MIND, a now WALKING-TALKING PRODUCT OF INCEST SHOULD BE DEAD – should have been aborted.

So, after you impregnated your imaginary daughter, what sort of fatherly advice would you offer to her about just shutting up and carrying the pregnancy to term?

Would you feel slighted if she didn't name it after you?

To ann #1385:

“They [Planned Parenthood] do D&E after 16 weeks. But if that was the case, the fetus either wouldn’t be intact; or it wouldn’t have a brain. She’s probably lying about something, basically.”

And PP people, and the Left in general, never lie. Just ask Hillary.

Yet a PP person talks about hoping for an “intact specimen” for the buyers at 3:12 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egGUEvY7CEg

At 4:00 we find mention of 6 docs who practice later than 16 weeks. But some of those docs practice post-16 weeks in such a way that they get the best specimens (4:20). But isn’t a D&E a D&E? That is, if they were only doing a D&E, how could they change the D&E to get better specimens?

Anyway, however they’re doing it, they try their best to get whole brains, livers, stomachs, etc.
See time 3:50 in the second video at
http://www.centerformedicalprogress.org/cmp/investigative-footage/

How can this be?
Oh, I know. Doctored video!

I say bring 'em all (PP AND their "heavily-editing" videographer critics) in to court and make them swear under oath. That could be a start.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

Here are some pictures of babies aborted in the second trimester. Even if you have the stomach to view the three galleries, you’ll dismiss them as lies or doctored photos – because, after all, this is from a Catholic site:
http://www.priestsforlife.org/resources/dc/index.htm

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

I say bring ’em all (PP AND their “heavily-editing” videographer critics) in to court and make them swear under oath.

Why should PP be in court? No evidence yet that they've done anything illegal.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/08/15/3691997/planned-parenthood-i…

On the other hand, I think most people would agree that groups, e.g., Live Action, CMP, that attempt to manipulate public opinion through the creation and dissemination of misleading and/or false information about organizations like PP should have their charity/non-profit status revoked.

Helianthus@1386

Ah, a rerun of the horror movie from the start of this thread (155).

Yup, seems he's running "fresh" material. This was already talked about ad nauseum (though with AH not See Noevo) as has his absurd incest arguments (I got in on this #1265). I'm bored now. If he's going to ignore any counterpoints, it's only interesting if he keeps changing it up. Reshashing the same tired points after ignoring every refutation presented just makes him tiresome.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

SN thought this was a satire about a serious subject:

Of course, I leave out another crucial aspect of family gatherings, and that’s babies. You see, here in Kentucky, there’s not much to do except cook meth and make babies, so by golly, that’s what we do! People are always concerned over what our babies are going to look like, as if they’re going to pop out with a couple extra heads, but that’s just plain silly. Sure, little Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson may have eighteen and zero toes, respectively, but Bobby is awfully good at sharing with his brother! See, we have to learn how to rely on ourselves and our families, and good, inbred marriages make for just that.

Now, life in Kentucky isn’t just farming and marrying and baby-having. We excel at a few other things too. Ever watched the Kentucky Derby? You’re welcome. Ever used a glue stick? You’re welcome for that, too. No, now I kid; the Kentucky Derby has horses from all over the world compete in it, not just from our great state! We sure do take pride in our horses though; in fact, one out of every ten students who make it to high school is a horse!

Some people may mock us for devoting our lifeblood to raising these horses, but since we don’t have any major universities that have National Basketball Championship titles or one of the twenty largest cities in the nation, we find ourselves to be just plain bored sometimes. We just don’t have the fortune to be the birthplace to a president or a couple of Academy Award nominated actors, because frankly, once you’re born in Kentucky, there’s really no getting out (we put roofies in our fried chicken, but don’t tell the Colonel that I told you the secret to one of his eleven herbs and spices!).

You can't make this stuff up.

^^As I said, SN thinks a broadly comic satire about stereotyped views of Kentucky is a "serious" satire about incest.

@#1387 --

Everybody knows I never said anything remotely like that, right?

@#1391 --

I don't know about that. They got first amendment rights, after all.

But they can get revoked if they broke the law, which they appear to me to have done. (Along these lines.) In fact, revocation would be the least of their troubles.

Someone would have to go to the trouble of dragging it to court, though.

In an extraordinary admission of wrongdoing, a priest sought by authorities in New Jersey has acknowledged engaging in a sexual encounter with a 15-year-old boy, but he deflected blame for the incident by saying the teen "wanted" it and had "evil in his mind."

In a telephone interview with NJ Advance Media, in email exchanges and in a lengthy post he shared publicly on Twitter, the Rev. Manuel Gallo Espinoza said it was a "mistake" to have sexual contact with the boy in the rectory of a Plainfield church in 2003. He said he fled to his native Ecuador after the victim told a nun and another priest that Gallo Espinoza raped him.

More at Exclusive: Priest admits sex with minor, says teen "wanted" it

To DGR #1391:

Me: “I say bring ’em all (PP AND their “heavily-editing” videographer critics) in to court and make them swear under oath.”

You: “Why should PP be in court? No evidence yet that they’ve done anything illegal.”

Plenty of evidence, but perhaps not yet proof, that PP broke at least four laws:
1)Illegal profiting from the sale of baby parts.
2)Illegally manipulating abortion procedures to maximize parts harvesting.
3)Illegally committing partial-birth abortions.
4)Illegally committing abortions with the knowledge that the baby will be “donated”.

http://liveactionnews.org/planned-parenthood-admits-to-breaking-federal…

No, PP isn’t in court, yet.
Neither is Hillary, yet.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

From DGR's link @#1392:

A July 1992 LIFE magazine article, The Great Divide, reported that Reverend Robert Schenk, member of anti-choice coalition Operation rescue, attended a demonstration outside an abortion clinic in Buffalo, NY, with "Baby Tia", a 7-inch, gray-tinted and formaldehyde-soaked dead fetus. In the escalating madness of the crowd, the fetus was dropped onto the sneaker-trodden street. Authorities arrested Schenk and confiscated the fetus, which was taken to a coroner, only to be identified as an approximately 20-week-old stillborn.

^^Now that's a heartless, ungodly desecration of the innocent dead for professional gain.

...

I guess the whole prurient obsessive fascination with pictures of dead fetuses is kind of a giveaway to begin with, though.

To ann #1394:

You left out two things.

First and far less important:

The title of the satire: “Kentucky Is Exactly What You’d Expect: Married Cousins and Inbred Children”;

and some lines such as “I am from Kentucky, so it’s only natural that I married my cousin. Not that I had much of a choice, though; here in Kentucky, it’s just one giant cesspool of incest… Marrying your cousin really isn’t all that bad. It’s just easier to marry someone you’ve grown up with your whole life. You don’t have to do much courting when your other half already knows what brand of tobacco you prefer to chew. Plus, an incest marriage kills two birds with one stone: the legal binding of two individuals and a family reunion!”
.............
Very funny. Like Ashley Judd’s incest.

SECOND and far more important:

You never mentioned the OTHER article I posted in #1151.

Its title is “America Has an Incest Problem”, and its body contains
“People are rightly horrified by abuse scandals at Penn State and in the Catholic church. But what about children who are molested by their own family members?

Child sexual abuse impacts more Americans annually than cancer, AIDS, gun violence, LGBT inequality, and the mortgage crisis combined—subjects that Obama DID cover.

Had he mentioned this issue, he would have been the first president to acknowledge the abuse that occurs in the institution that predates all others: the family. Incest was the first form of institutional abuse, and it remains BY FAR THE MOST WIDESPREAD.

Here are some statistics that should be familiar to us all, but aren't, either because they're too mind-boggling to be absorbed easily, or because they're NOT PUBLICIZED ENOUGH. ONE IN THREE-TO-FOUR GIRLS, and one in five-to-seven boys are sexually abused before they turn 18, an OVERWHELMING INCIDENCE of which happens WITHIN THE FAMILY. These statistics are well known among industry professionals, who are often quick to add, "and this is a NOTORIOUSLY UNDERREPORTED crime."

…While all abuse is traumatizing, people outside of a child's home and family—the Sanduskys, the teachers and the priests—account for far fewer cases of child sexual abuse.

… Consciously and unconsciously, collectively and individually, accepting and dealing with the full depth and scope of incest is not something society is prepared to do.

In fact society has already unraveled; the general public just hasn't realized it yet. Ninety-five percent of teen prostitutes and at least one-third of female prisoners were abused as kids.”
...........
Very funny.
And YOU’RE so funny, pedantically parsing the meaning of words and my comprehension of them, while you tried to avoid the subject, and avoid your tacit admission (i.e. A now walking-talking product of incest should be dead – should have been aborted.).

You funny, annie!

And you 0-for-21.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1396:

Guess what. I’m WITH you on this!

Yes, I think that homosexual pervert priest should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
And the same goes for anyone who aided & abetted or tried to cover this up.

Sexual abuse is a great scourge on society in general.

But here’s what I don’t get, ann.
If the main issue is exposing, prosecuting and correcting sexual abuse, as it should be (and the Catholic Church has paid a far greater price than any),
then, why is so very little attention given to where the problem may be greatest?

“The 2002 Department of Education report estimated that from 6 percent to 10 percent of all students in public schools would be victims of abuse before graduation — a staggering statistic. Yet, outside the Catholic Church, the reaction is increasingly accommodation instead of outrage.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-school/

Would you please post some sordid sex abuse stories from the public schools? There should be at least as many as from the RCC.

Thanks.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

@ #1397

So on one hand we have investigations from several states that identify no wrong-doing by PP and on the other we have Lila Rose's opinion that PP has broken several laws.

Who to believe?

Sorry, See.

I'll go with the opinion of the states over that of a person of dubious ethics who earns their living from anti-abortion rabble rousing.

I mean, $88,000.00 a year seems like a pretty sweet scam to me.

http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/421/421764425/42176442…

Probably earns even more from Fox news guest spots, etc.

Actually, I thought it was a satire about a serious subject.
Not all satires are about serious subjects.
But that one was a satire on a serious subject.

You can't make this shіt up. Recall:

More importantly, if the following story is at all accurate, then, maybe in the future, ann would be OK (i.e. would not forbid if she had the power to forbid) “terminating” a significant portion of, say, Kentucky’s population.

"These also shall be unclean unto you among the creeping things that creep upon the earth; the weasel, and the mouse, and the tortoise after his kind,

"And the ferret, and the chameleon, and the lizard, and the snail, and the mole.

"These are unclean to you among all that creep: whosoever doth touch them, when they be dead, shall be unclean until the even."

To DGR #1402:

“I’ll go with the opinion of the states over that of a person of dubious ethics who earns their living from anti-abortion rabble rousing.
I mean, $88,000.00 a year seems like a pretty sweet scam to me.”

Not as sweet as $590,000/year for the head of Murder, Inc.

“Meanwhile, PPFA’s CEO, Cecile Richards, reported making $590,928 annually. That is up substantially from the almost $400,000 a year she was earning just four years ago.”
http://www.lifenews.com/2015/07/01/planned-parenthood-president-cecile-…

And the top 12 PPFA employees average $345K/year.

Sounds like a pretty sick scam to me.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

And YOU’RE so funny, pedantically parsing the meaning of words and my comprehension of them

G-d, this meltdown is a thing of beauty. How drunk are you, S.N.? More or less than when you impregnated your daughter? After all:

while you tried to avoid the subject, and avoid your tacit admission

To ann #1395:

“@#1387 —
Everybody knows I never said anything remotely like that, right?”

No, everybody doesn’t know that.

Here’s a very simple, very clear question for you, ann:

If YOU, ann, were her doctor, would YOU recommend the abortion of her incestuous pregnancy?

Yes or No?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

If YOU, ann, were her doctor, would YOU recommend the abortion of her incestuous pregnancy?

What people who are not lying bullies do is present her with her options and let her make her own decision.

Perhaps the pinnacle of this emasculation is S.N.'s revealing his inability to tell (or increasingly desperate refusal to accept) the difference between when people are talking to him and when they're talking about him.

Abortion was probably the furthest thing from Lou’s mind. Nevertheless…

“… and there's even some evil mothers
They’ll tell you that life is just made out of dirt
and women never really faint
oh, the villains always blink their eyes
that children are the only ones who blush
and life is just to die
And anyone who had a heart
they wouldn't turn around and break it
and anyone who ever played a part
They wouldn't turn around and hate it
Sweet Jane, Sweet Sweet Jane…”

Love the intro:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FdWPeHFAMk

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noevo@1400

Yes, I think that homosexual pervert priest should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Just when I said I was getting bored, you came through in a big, horribly offensive way. "How is this offensive?" you might ask. I don't have high hopes given that it should be immediately clear to anyone who isn't intolerant of gays but here's a simple exercise. Can you see what is wrong in this slightly modified sentence?
----------
Yes, I think that black pervert priest should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
----------
Shot in the dark says you don't. However, on the off chance you are slightly less racist than you are homophobic, I'd challenge you to do some extrapolating.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

Plus, as S.N. tediously, pathetically resorts again to posting Y—be videos while he settles into the thumb-sucking fetal position in the corner, he fails to realize that even this is an invitation to demonstrate the utter failure that is the very essence of what passes for his being.

You might as well have sent up a flare to advertise the target, Peaches.*

I also surmise that Lou and Rachel/Tommy has eluded his cranium, but whatever.

* Apparently a performance on Musikladen.

“Meanwhile, PPFA’s CEO, Cecile Richards, reported making $590,928 annually.

Cecile is CEO of a national organization that provides many valuable services to society as a whole. I don't think her pay is out of line for that type of position and responsibility.

Lila Rose is an anti-abortion rabble rouser whose activities provide no benefit to society in general ... or for that matter, provide no benefit to anyone but herself (and all the imaginary "babies" she "saves").

And given that Lila has no apparent qualifications for any employment other than anti-abortion rabble rousing or fast food, I do see her $88,000, plus whatever she get from Fox News, etc. appearances, as a pretty sweet deal for her.

If the anti-abortion gig ever runs out, I imagine she'll get into peddling alt med or some similar shady business.

To capnkrunch #1410:

“See Noevo@1400
"Yes, I think that homosexual pervert priest should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law."
Just when I said I was getting bored, you came through in a big, horribly offensive way. “How is this offensive?” you might ask…”

So sorry. Allow me to modify:
*Yes, I think that latino homosexual pervert priest should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And the same goes for anyone who aided & abetted or tried to cover this up.*

There, that’s better. Just trying to be precise, clinical.
The key words, of course, are *homosexual pervert*.

“However, on the off chance you are slightly less racist than you are homophobic, I’d challenge you to do some extrapolating.”

Should be no need to extrapolate.
Soon, ann should be supplying further stories from the RCC, where the first descriptor would often be “white”, as in *white homosexual pervert priest*.
Also, ann hopefully will be offering still more stories from the public schools,
where we’ll find white/latino/black/etc. homosexual/heterosexual pervert teachers/administrators.

However, where the abused is a 15-year-old boy, chances are very good that the teacher/administrator would be homosexual.
[Related to that last part, as I recall, in about 80% of the cases of alleged abuse in the RCC, the victims were post-pubescent males.]
………………….
I think this was the first time on this thread in which I addressed you directly, capn.

And I think it may be the last.

I’m putting you on the “No fly” list with some others (ref: #1206).

Buh bye, capn.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 19 Aug 2015 #permalink

Yes, I think that homosexual pervert priest should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Just when I said I was getting bored, you came through in a big, horribly offensive way.

Well, he did show his real colors when he remained silent about those other links, for example a priest impregnating a little girl and forcing her to have an abortion. Or priests sexually assaulting nuns - The way See no doubt sees it, it was all done like god intended, so no need for heavy-handed prosecution or even token condemnation on a forum comment board.

And the lying misogynistic creep proved my point before I even made it!

So on one hand we have investigations from several states that identify no wrong-doing by PP and on the other we have Lila Rose’s opinion that PP has broken several laws.

Who to believe?

It's not really a question of belief at this stage.

Lila Rose's accusations (made on July 24th) were actually what effing led to the investigations that failed to find any truth to them (as reported at your link on August 15th).

SN is just ignoring reality, as usual.

Perhaps the pinnacle of this emasculation is S.N.’s revealing his inability to tell (or increasingly desperate refusal to accept) the difference between when people are talking to him and when they’re talking about him.

Such as, for example, here:

Sadly, there is widespread indifference to such suffering, which is even now taking place throughout our world.

______________

The thing is: I've already answered SN's question. Eons ago.

But SN is a person who still believes (for example) that Planned Parenthood will end up in court for charges that have already been investigated and found false.

And repeating yourself to someone whose brainwashed state of near-total incomprehension prevents him from hearing and retaining anything other than right-wing propaganda and spin is a waste of time.

So I'm not going to bother.

See Noevo's nature can be explained thusly:
When the day of judgement comes, when all secrets are made known and all debts are repaid or forgiven, when the Son of Man sits at his throne to judge the living and the dead, See is the one who will approach the throne of the Most High, behold the Lord of lords, and declare: "What are you doing in my chair?"

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

For another example --

Way back @#1179, unprompted and for no reason other than that it's the truth, I said:

Is your point that Priests Commit No More Abuse than Other Males?

Nobody has been arguing otherwise. So that would be so completely illogical, senseless, and unobservant that it’s kind of hard to believe. But since I can’t imagine what other point you think you’re making:

Granted. The principle characteristic of all men who sexually abuse children is that they have unsupervised access to children — ie, caretakers, clergy, teachers, etc.

Two wrongs don’t make a right, though. That’s just basic logic.

Yet there he is @#1400, mindlessly spewing rote accusations at me as if the subject had never come up before.

And (to nobody's surprise, I'm sure), he's actually proving that he doesn't care enough about the sexual abuse of minors to give a moment's thought to whether what he's saying serves any worthwhile purpose, apart from deflecting blame from the church.

It's true that sexual abuse in schools is very common. I'd be a little surprised if there were any posters to this thread who graduated from an American public high school without acquiring some anecdotal knowledge of that.

But schoolteachers obviously have much less unrestricted private access to and power over children than priests do. So the problem, while very real, is not really comparable. That ten percent figure is a reflection of this:

The best available study suggests that about 10 percent of students suffer some form of sexual abuse during their school careers. In the 2000 report, commissioned by the American Association of University Women, surveyors asked students between eighth and 11th grades whether they had ever experienced inappropriate sexual conduct at school. The list of such conduct included lewd comments, exposure to pornography, peeping in the locker room, and sexual touching or grabbing. Around one in 10 students said they had been the victim of one or more such things from a teacher or other school employee, and two-thirds of those reported the incident involved physical contact.

I mean, it goes without saying that teachers do sometimes engage in the same kind of sustained, repeated sexual violation of minors as priests. But they have many fewer opportunities and a much higher chance of being caught and punished. So it's not the same order of chronic institutional problem to begin with. And it's not compounded by decades and decades of self-serving institutional evasion and cover-up.

In short: It is a problem. But it's just not the same thing. The only reason to bring it up as if it were is to minimize the guilt of the Catholic Church.

And SN purports to be all about the protection of young innocent souls.

@ ann

And it’s not compounded by decades and decades of self-serving institutional evasion and cover-up.

I fully agree to your post. And it was already said in a previous thread with SN, where, as usual, it went right over his head.

To emphasize:
It's one thing to find a sex abuser in one settlement.

It's another one to realize his colleagues knew about it, and hushed it up, with a bit of victim blaming on the side. The recent Penn State U scandal is an example of such.

It's even more so galling when said colleagues spent the whole time yammering how sex is wrong between consenting adults. That's the RCC position. Preaching one thing, doing another.

By Helianthus (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

I also surmise that Lou and Rachel/Tommy has eluded his cranium, but whatever.

IIRC, she was with him on the Rock 'n' Roll Animal tour, too. (There's also "Jack's in his corset/Jane is in her vest," although the song is from before Rachel's time.)

In any event. She was the kind of person he'd been dreaming of, the kind of person he always wanted to love. He knew that when he seen her walk through that bar door. (Link.)

They were a cute couple.

@#1420 --

The thing is:

The story I linked to is about a kid who was confused about his sexuality as a result of having been molested by a male cousin when he was eight. So he went to confession. And shortly afterwards, the priest on the other side of the screen took him to the rectory, insisted that he spend the night, and raped him. Then he fled to Ecuador.

Nobody should even need to be told once what's wrong with responding to that by saying, "Oh, yeah? Well, what about schools? Stuff like that happens there all the time!"

@Grey Falcon #1418; you owe me a new keyboard.

Reading this thread as it goes on is rather morbidly fascinating. SN jumps from subject to subject, and keeps insisting he's right about PP, even though several states who have investigated have found they have done NOTHING ILLEGAL.

I also like the way he skipped RIGHT OVER the priest lying about the fetus used in the march, which was a 20 week stillbirth instead of the 2nd trimester termination so proclaimed.

Actually, I didn't find any of SN's pictures disturbing. Sad, yes, but I've had patients who have had 2nd trimester terminations (for medical reasons), and 3rd trimester stillbirths. The visuals don't bother me. I've seen it all before.

I also like the way SN assumes the priest *had to be* homosexual because he raped a boy. How about the fact the priest was just an evil person?

Homosexual does not equal pedophile, SN, just in case you weren't aware of that basic fact. Most pedophile attacks are heterosexuals to prepubescent or early teen children.

To ann #1419:

“But schoolteachers obviously have much less unrestricted private access to and power over children than priests do. So the problem, while very real, is not really comparable.”

Well, annie, I spent 12 years in Catholic schools in the 1960s and 1970s (16 years, if you want to count college), and don’t know what you’re talking about.
My experience, and that of all the students I knew growing up, was of vastly more private time spent with teachers – virtually all of whom were lay people or nuns – than private time spent with priests. I’ve never personally known of any of my fellow students being abused by priests.

“… I mean, it goes without saying that teachers do sometimes engage in the same kind of sustained, repeated sexual violation of minors as priests. But they have many fewer opportunities and a much higher chance of being caught and punished.”

Again, my experience is that non-priest teachers had far MORE opportunities.
My experience is also that such non-priest teachers have a much LOWER chance of being caught and punished.
And it actually may be YOUR experience as well.
I mean, if non-priest teachers have a much higher chance of being caught and punished, how would you say non-priest teachers compare to priests in terms of abuse allegations, indictments, convictions, and financial settlements?

See, in the last 15 years or so, the Catholic Church has paid out over $2 billion relative to about 10,000 allegations involving about 4,000 priests (with most of the abuse alleged to have occurred between 1950 and the mid-1980s, and with many of the accused now dead).

How do the non-priest teachers numbers stack up?

“In short: It is a problem. But it’s just not the same thing. The only reason to bring it up as if it were is to minimize the guilt of the Catholic Church.”

It sure sounds like you’re focused on the guilt of one particular institution, and not on the societally-pervasive problem of which that one institution has contributed a relatively small part.
Doesn’t it?

And ann purports to be all about the protection of young innocent souls, er, bodies and minds.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

[Related to that last part, as I recall, in about 80% of the cases of alleged abuse in the RCC, the victims were post-pubescent males.]

I somehow missed that little snippet of rank homophobia the first time around.

But the under-reporting of the sexual abuse of girls by priests was addressed back @#1160.

And just for good measure, there are links to several articles that do likewise here:

http://jezebel.com/5518672/the-forgotten-victims-of-priest-sexual-abuse…

To ann #1422:

“@#1420 —
The thing is: The story I linked to is about a kid who was confused about his sexuality as a result of having been molested by a male cousin when he was eight. So he went to confession. And shortly afterwards, the priest on the other side of the screen took him to the rectory, insisted that he spend the night, and raped him. Then he fled to Ecuador.
Nobody should even need to be told once what’s wrong with responding to that by saying, “Oh, yeah? Well, what about schools? Stuff like that happens there all the time!””

Except that I didn’t respond like that.
I responded with
“I’m WITH you on this! Yes, I think that homosexual pervert priest should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. And the same goes for anyone who aided & abetted or tried to cover this up.
Sexual abuse is a great scourge on society in general.
But here’s what I don’t get, ann.
If the main issue is exposing, prosecuting and correcting sexual abuse, as it should be (and the Catholic Church has paid a far greater price than any),
then, why is so very little attention given to where the problem may be greatest?”

THAT is how I responded.

P.S.
What WAS the punishment for that homosexual priest, or what do you think it SHOULD have been?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

To MI Dawn #1424:

“I also like the way [See Noevo] skipped RIGHT OVER the priest lying about the fetus used in the march, which was a 20 week stillbirth instead of the 2nd trimester termination so proclaimed.”

So sorry. I think that priest should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for what he did.

“Actually, I didn’t find any of SN’s pictures disturbing. Sad…”

Sad.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

I wonder why SN considers an experienced midwife's familiarity with medical terminations and stillbirths to be sad.

To MI Dawn #1425:

“I also like the way SN assumes the priest *had to be* homosexual because he raped a boy.”

Do male heterosexuals rape or want to rape 15-year-old males?

“How about the fact the priest was just an evil person?”

How about the possibility that homosexuality is evil?

In case ann doesn’t answer, I’ll ask you what I asked her:
What WAS the punishment for that homosexual priest, or what do you think it SHOULD have been?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1427:

Me: “[Related to that last part, as I recall, in about 80% of the cases of alleged abuse in the RCC, the victims were post-pubescent males.]”

You: “I somehow missed that little snippet of rank homophobia the first time around.”

Homophobia? I have no fear of homosexuals. Nor do I discriminate against them. I pity them, and want to help them from harming themselves and others with their inherently disordered orientation.

“But the under-reporting of the sexual abuse of girls by priests was addressed back @#1160.
And just for good measure, there are links to several articles that do likewise here…”

It sounds like the lawyers have a war-on women, ann!
That is, the lawyers suing the Catholic Church for billions of dollars-worth of sexual abuse.
Those anti-women lawyers are also stupid. Just think how much MORE money they could make if they got all the potential female plaintiffs, who are still in the shadows for some reason.

Just how under-represented are the victim girls, ann?
That is, of the 10,000 or so allegations against about 4,000 priests (with most of the abuse alleged to have occurred between 1950 and the mid-1980s, and with many of the accused now dead), about how many of the accusers are male and how many are female, ann?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

Just an observation…

Given the number of comments here about me and my posts, the See Noevo Show has got to be the most popular one at ScienceBlogs.

It’s like Fox News of cable TV news, or Rush Limbaugh of radio.
Nobody else is even close.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

See, isn't pride a mortal sin?

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

How about the possibility that homosexuality is evil?

Except, of course, that it isn't.

@ See Noevo
I wouldn't be that sure. To me you are just as popular as a train-wreck, which might also attract a lot of viewers.

Wow. Just wow. I have so much I want to say but then I saw #1431 and I am speechless. After all the hand waving, the smoke and mirrors, the self-righteousness, the holier-than-thou attitude, the 'you're the bad guys not me" arguments, See Noevo finally came out and admitted he is just a bigoted piece of shit. I'm going to start signing every comment in this thread with:

See Neovo@1431

How about the possibility that homosexuality is evil?

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

Here ya go, See:

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2015/08/20/3693340/planned-parenthood-v…

I'm rather surprised that no U.S. citizen has created a "We the People" petition to remove the charitable/non-profit status from anti-abortion rabble rousing organizations, like Live Action, CMP, etc.

There's obviously no ethics or honesty in the anti-abortion movement, which exists only to undermine state and federal law and the rights of other citizens through bully tactics, dissemination of misinformation and, at times, outright domestic terrorism.

No reason for any so-called pro-life organization to have charitable and/or non-profit status as these do not perform any sort of beneficial or "charitable" purpose in society.

the See Noevo Show

Yeah, very similar to the movie "Welcome to Me", with See in the starring role.

"How about the possibility that homosexuality is evil?"

How about the possibility that you're cognitively impaired? "But it's stated in Leviticus!".
"But there's plenty of stupid stuff in Leviticus that would get you in jail for doing, and other things that are just plain weird that christians don't do".
"Yeah but the old testament has been patched by god since then, it's all about the new testament now! Even though Jesus doesn't speak of homosexuality even once."

Always the same old worthless arguments against homosexuality that you are guarenteed to hear in any debate with a creationist. Even if you back them into a corner, they just run away, delete all the information they have heard and start the debate anew the next day.

Please See, enlighten us on just how homosexuality is evil? Your arguments are so one dimensionnal that even chat bots are more convincing than you.

Hi there, there little weasel: what about the possibility that lies and willful misrepresentations are evil? Your God express any opinion about that? My God certainly does, and He's pretty strongly against the kind of things that you do here - allegedly in His Name - on a regular basis.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

See @ 1431

How about the possibility that homosexuality is evil?

See, by what rational argument is homosexuality in and of itself any more inherently evil than is heterosexuality?

garou @ 1440

“But it’s stated in Leviticus!”

Actually, it’s not stated in Leviticus.

The Holiness Code prohibition against “a man lying with another man” applies only to members of the nation of Israel, only at a particular time in history (when contact with Canaanite society and religion threatened the continuation of a unique Jewish identity), and addressed only homosexual acts that occur in a specific and defined context ( i.e., when participating in non-Jewish rites of worship which included male and female temple prostitution). In short, he Holiness Code prohibits male same-sex acts because of religious considerations and not because of inherent sexual or moral impropriety.

The Old Hebrew word the authors’ used to condemn such participation, and which the KJV renders in English as ‘abomination’, makes this clear: the text uses ‘to’evah’ which denotes ‘ritually impermissible’ (it’s the same word used to condemn idolatry in multiple other Torah verses).

If the authors’ intent was to condemn homosexuality in and of itself they would of necessity have to have chosen a different Hebrew word (such as ‘zimah’, which denotes ‘morally perverse’).

To Renate #1437:

Me: “Given the number of comments here about me and my posts, the See Noevo Show has got to be the most popular one at ScienceBlogs. It’s like Fox News of cable TV news, or Rush Limbaugh of radio. Nobody else is even close.”

You: “I wouldn’t be that sure. To me you are just as popular as a train-wreck, which might also attract a lot of viewers.”

Then you and the others here might also be pretty sick, morbid people.
You make a good point, in a sense.

But the conductor of THIS train is doing fine. And so is his train.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

To Robert L Bell #1441:
“Hi there, there little weasel: what about the possibility that lies and willful misrepresentations are evil? Your God express any opinion about that? My God certainly does, and He’s pretty strongly against the kind of things that you do here – allegedly in His Name – on a regular basis.”

Who is YOUR God, little Robert, and what did he say about, say, homosexuality?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

To JGC #1442:

“See, by what rational argument is homosexuality in and of itself any more inherently evil than is heterosexuality?”

JGC, by what rational argument is killing a life that YOU admit COULD be a human being not inherently evil (ref. #974) ?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

Renate@1437

I wouldn’t be that sure. To me you are just as popular as a train-wreck, which might also attract a lot of viewers.

It's like traffic caused by gapers. The worse the wreck the more traffic it creates. Side note though, APV is driving the longest current thread over at the Bob Sears post.

I have a comment in moderation for calling a turd, a turd in more colorful langauge. The long and short of it is that I'm going to be signing my comments in this thread with a quote from See Noevo's #1431 because I think it perfectly and concisely represents his bigotry and general asshat-ery. I'd recommend you guys do the same (or use another quote of you liking, he's a treasure trove of scum). That way, his awfulness in it's most concentrated form is always front and center no matter what else happens to be going on in the thread.

See Neovo@1431

How about the possibility that homosexuality is evil?

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

See, don't lecture me on evil. I work as an IT person for my state's Department of Family and Child Services. I have seen reports about child abuse and neglect of every shade and type. I know what evil is.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

The worst part of all the DFCS reports is that evil only accounts for about 1% of the cases. The rest stem from parents who have no idea how to raise a child.

By Gray Falcon (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

But the conductor of THIS train is doing fine. And so is his train.

I think the problem is with the route, i.e., obviously travelling through the mountains of dementia.

Or madness, if you enjoy Lovecraft.

Ph'nglui Mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Bon voyage, ann!

Holy Ghostie, Batman ... more blatantly obvious trolling from See I'mEvil !!!

Quick ... to the bats in the belfry mobile.

*snicker*

What's the over/under on flogging this thing to #2000?

I call September 26.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

WRT by how much female victims of sexual abuse by priests are under-represented:

I don't know. But I think a guy who spent twelve years working as a fixer of the Catholic Church's sexual messes is in a very good position to know what he's talking about on tht score. And this is what he says:

Females are more likely to be attractive to clergy because the majority of priests are heterosexual — but some are psychologically and sexually immature, says former priest-turned-lawyer Patrick Wall.

“If they’re going to explore sexually, they’re going to explore with a little girl,” said Wall, a California-based expert on Catholic clergy abuse who now works with victims.

Wall’s perspective on the degree of female abuse is unique. He was a Benedictine monk for 12 years, working as a “fixer” dispatched to tidy up messy sexual problems of priests and laymen at troubled parishes and schools. He said when a girl required surgery after rape, the code was that she needed a “hernia” operation.

In a bizarre twinning, he counselled accused priests and heard confessions from traumatized victims. He also worked on cases where priests impregnated girls then procured abortions for them.

“That is so prevalent, it happens all the time,” he said of the abortion runs, which in part accounts for his belief that teenaged girls are the silent majority of priest-related sexual abuse.

I don't find that at all surprising. More than two-thirds of female rape victims don't report it. That includes adolescent girls. I don't see why that should be any different within the church than it is without.

The link is back at #1160, where I posted the above the first time around.

Do male heterosexuals rape or want to rape 15-year-old males?

If they're around 15-year-old males and they're rapists, yes.

Rape is an opportunistic crime. It's just that outside of prison, boarding school, and the Catholic Church prior to the 1990s, there's usually a choice.

Robert @1453: You would think we could be beating the all-jello-all-the-time party over at the Bob Sears post capnkrunch mentioned at 1447. As of now that thread is at 1,595. You would think on a subject as contentious as SN is trying to make this one we'd be much higher.

Perhaps our kind host would tell us what the current record is for longest thread ever? (Or maybe he doesn't want us to try and out-do ourselves.)

By JustaTech (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

But the conductor of THIS train is doing fine. And so is his train.

Someone has confused a train with a clown car.

To ann #1454:

“WRT by how much female victims of sexual abuse by priests are under-represented: I don’t know…”

Maybe I can help you out, ann. Here’s what I’ve heard:

In the RCC scandal, about 80% of the alleged victims were male and about 80% of those were post-pubescent;
while in the scandal in the general population, females represent the majority of victims.

“More than two-thirds of female rape victims don’t report it. That includes adolescent girls. I don’t see why that should be any different within the church than it is without.”

Well, ann, what percentage of male rape victims don’t report it?

Speaking of which, here’s a hypothetical for you, and for my many readers out there (btw,THANKS
for making the See Noevo Show #1!):

Which of the following is more likely to be considered more bizarre and more unnatural and more embarrassing and more likely to be covered up by the victim:

1)A rape by a male of a female, or
2)A rape by a male of a male?

I would vote #2.
Why is why it’s so puzzling to me that more of the female RCC victims haven’t come forward, especially after the understandably (to me) more bashful boys lead the way,
with they’re lawyers.

P.S.
How was your flight?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

To ann #1455:

Me: “Do male heterosexuals rape or want to rape 15-year-old males?”

You: “If they’re around 15-year-old males and they’re rapists, yes. Rape is an opportunistic crime. It’s just that outside of prison, boarding school, and the Catholic Church prior to the 1990s, there’s usually a choice.”

Perhaps you’re referring to the advent of female altar servers in the 1990s. [And in fact, from my personal observation, and that of many others, over the last 20 years altar girls have outnumbered altar boys, to the point where it’s almost a shock, or at least refreshing, to see a boy serving at Mass.]

So, the rapists were still there, but starting in the 1990s they could choose between boys and girls, but the girls were greater in number.

So again, where are all the female victims of the heterosexual rapist priests, ann?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

What’s the over/under on flogging this thing to #2000?

Only person really keeping the thread going is, as it has pointed out, See.

And as See has a rather obvious "secret" crush on ann, I suspect that as long as she continues to respond to See's adolescent bids for attention, See will keep blabbering away.

Of course, the only things See seems to have going its life are this thread and an occasional round of golf.

Maybe See will decide to pay more golf and finally leave this thread alone but, I guess that could depend on the availability of the other members of his golf foursome.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8d9BOc6al84/TbyJrn1UAuI/AAAAAAAAAYw/v4YTiGcLb…

Luckily, he started to prepare for his inevitable abandonment by me and all onlookers with that jet-plane thing, though.

So now he can claim -- at least to himself -- that we didn't leave! He drove us away!

He's a subtle one, that SN.

(^^And from a certain point of view, it won't be wrong.)

To Justa Tech #1456:

“Robert @1453: You would think we could be beating the all-jello-all-the-time party over at the Bob Sears post capnkrunch mentioned at 1447. As of now that thread is at 1,595. You would think on a subject as contentious as SN is trying to make this one we’d be much higher.”

I didn’t post any comments at that link.
However, I did at this one:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/05/20/why-do-doctors-deny-evolut…

“Perhaps our kind host would tell us what the current record is for longest thread ever? (Or maybe he doesn’t want us to try and out-do ourselves.)”

I have no idea what the record is, one reason being I don’t know when ScienceBlogs began.
But if you can provide some data on
1)What the record is SINCE I started commenting at ScienceBlogs, and
2)What is the average comments per blog I don’t post comments on vs. the average comments per blog I DO post comments on, and
3)What is the percentage of comments that are about me or my posts in 2), then,

I think we might be interested.

But thanks for making the See Noevo Show #1.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

Luckily, he started to prepare for his inevitable abandonment by me and all onlookers

Based on the info its provided, See should be in its late 60s.

So likely just a lonely old fart no one in the real world has time for and is just looking for love ... or whatever ... in all the wrong places.

My mental picture of See is similar to this:

http://memesvault.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/family-guy-herbert-mem…

To DGR #1461:

“Only person really keeping the thread going is, as it has pointed out, See.”

And apparently you are the only person who’s unaware that’s false.

Of the first 1,464 comments here, mine account for only about 241 (16%).
Even a casual reader would sense that most of the comments by others here are comments about me or my posts.
A less casual reader might say that about 70% or more of the comments here are about me and my posts [Ref. #1119, #1314.].

An honest, logical, and factual person would say this thread would have died weeks ago without my input.
And such a person would surmise I wouldn’t post solo here for weeks; I’d continue to post only if my posts were generating dialogue.

But thanks for making the See Noevo Show the #1 dialogue at ScienceBlogs.

P.S.
Do you have anything interesting to add here?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

But thanks for making the See Noevo Show the #1 dialogue at ScienceBlogs.

many people like a clown show, and encourage the clown to keep it going. Make yourself welcome to the encouragement.

By Bill Price (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

See Noevo@1464

I didn’t post any comments at that link.

Could he be any more self-absorbed? Actually, is that giving him too much credit? Is he just that stupid? I'll leave it as an exercise for See Noevo (because anyone with a modicum of intelligence already knows) to figure out what he got wrong. Here's a hint: it has to do why this quote from #1466 is demonstrably wrong.

But thanks for making the See Noevo Show the #1 dialogue at ScienceBlogs.

----------
See Neovo@1431

How about the possibility that homosexuality is evil?

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

In this blog, which was ostensibly to be about abortion and vaccines, the comments quickly turned to the subject of the Catholic Church, and THEN, as is seemingly always the case on atheistic/anti-Catholic websites such as this, to the RCC’s sexual abuse scandal.

It’s like an inevitable flow: Vaccines…embryonic ethics… abortion… RCC an evil, hypocritical, misogynistic, pedophile plantation.

Of course, the original subject doesn’t have to be related to vaccines or even abortion. It could start with just about anything - like marriage or poverty or morality or evolution or science or climate change. Hardly matters.
The flow of comments ultimately empties into the same cesspool (i.e. RCC an evil, hypocritical, misogynistic, pedophile plantation).

Anyway, since we’re on the inevitable subject of the RCC being an evil, hypocritical, misogynistic, pedophile plantation,
I have a hypothesis.
………………..
I’ll call it the Homosexual Hypothesis:
*The so-called pedophilia problem in the RCC is really primarily a homosexual problem.*

You see, in the wake of Vatican II (and specifically the often willful “misunderstandings” of it) and of the sexual revolution, many seminaries strangely saw the admission of many homosexual men.
Coincidentally, the alleged cases of sexual abuse began increasing in the late 1960s, peaked in the 1970s, and began declining in the 1980s to the “normal” rates of the pre-1960s. (Such “normal” rates of abuse by clergy or authority figures are about the same as that experienced in Protestant and Jewish congregations, and are lower than that experienced in the public school system.)
And coincidentally, about 80% of the alleged victims were post-pubescent males.
Imagine that!

And this infiltration of homosexuals wasn’t confined to seminaries, of course. Ultimately, those homosexuals were ordained, and many advanced to the highest levels of the Church over the last 30-40 years.
And coincidentally, a lot of the sexual abuse of young males was successfully covered up, until it blew around 2002.
Imagine that!

And who knows? Maybe even Pope Francis would give weight to my hypothesis [“In the Curia there are holy people, truly, there are holy people. But there's also a current of corruption – there's that, too, it's true.... The 'gay lobby' is spoken of, and it's true, that's there... we need to see what we can do.” ].
…………………………………

As I’ve already said, sexual perversion and sexual abuse is a great scourge on society in general.

But no institution on the face of this earth has received greater scrutiny
and (often justified) condemnation,
and taken more extensive corrective action,
and paid out more monies in restitution
(over $2 billion, to victims whose alleged abusers were often long since dead and unable to defend themselves),
than the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church, the favorite target of Satan, and a certain breed of lawyer.

Yes, many of the accused are now dead.
But lots of people are still alive for a pay day.

Not so for the 55 million plus victims of abortion.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

Cleaning up after the goat rodeo I experienced a delightful epiphany. Just like after my thesis defense, the clouds opened and the celestial chorus wailed and I was struck between the eyes as if with a bullet of pure diamond: little weasel here is the Worst Advertisement Ever for the Whore of Babylon: he makes Bill Donahue and his army of self declared avengers seem compassionate and reasonable. My hat is off to you, my dear fellow, one does not pull of an accomplishment like that every day.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

Even a casual reader would sense that most of the comments by others here are comments about me or my posts

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

In this blog, which was ostensibly to be about abortion and vaccines, the comments quickly turned to the subject of the Catholic Church, and THEN, as is seemingly always the case on atheistic/anti-Catholic websites such as this, to the RCC’s sexual abuse scandal.

For the record, the first mention of the sexual scandal came as a response to your intellectual equal AH, who compared Planned Parenthood with paedophilia - the comments about the catholic church were demonstrations that his comparison was inapt. If I would have "attacked" the Catholic church, I probably would't have used a link that said Catholic church has the same percentage of paedophiles the rest of the world does, you misogynistic idjit.

And now that you're bringing this up, I'll ask you what I asked you then. If you think me and a couple of other commenters posting an interview with the Pope and a few other links was an attack against the Church, how would you describe AH's comment in #347. The earliest reply mentioning the scandal in Catholic church was #350. "Quickly turned", sure.

"Priests who had same-sex sexual experiences either
before seminary or in seminary were more likely to
have sexual behavior after ordination, but this behavior
was most likely with adults. These men were not
significantly more likely to abuse minors." (Source: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops)

According to The Washington Post, "A five-year study commissioned by the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops to provide a definitive answer to what caused the church’s sexual abuse crisis has concluded that neither the all-male celibate priesthood nor homosexuality were to blame."

and

"The report notes that homosexual men began entering the seminaries “in noticeable numbers” from the late 1970s through the 1980s. By the time this cohort entered the priesthood, in the mid-1980s, the reports of sexual abuse of minors by priests began to drop and then to level off. If anything, the report says, the abuse decreased as more gay priests began serving the church."

And then there's also these:
"More than 70 percent of the men who molest boys rate themselves as heterosexual in their adult sexual preferences. In addition, 9 percent report that they are equally heretosexual and homosexual. Only 8 percent report that they are exclusively homosexual." (Source)

"A random sample of 175 males convicted of sexual assault against children was screened with reference to their adult sexual orientation and the sex of their victims. The sample divided fairly evenly into two groups based on whether they were sexually fixated exclusively on children or had regressed from peer relationships. Female children were victimized nearly twice as often as male children. All regressed offenders, whether their victims were male or female children, were heterosexual in their adult orientation. There were no examples of regression to child victims among peer-oriented, homosexual males. The possibility emerges that homosexuality and homosexual pedophilia may be mutually exclusive and that the adult heterosexual male constitutes a greater risk to the underage child than does the adult homosexual male." (Source: PMID: 666571)

But will any of this matter to our resident dishonest creep? No, because he doesn't care about truth or honesty, or even preventing future abuse - he has picked a scapegoat he likes deriding and he's gonna stay the course regardless of evidence, as usual.

But thanks for making the See Noevo Show the #1 dialogue at ScienceBlogs.

Strange kind of dialogue, where one person doesn''t react to questions, while twisting the answers (s)he gets in all kinds of ways, so they say what (s)he wants to hear, instead of what is really said.

p.s. I'm pretty sure SN is a male, but since I don't know for sure, I keep using (s)he.

Aesop's Fables, translated by Laura Gibbs (2002)

212. THE DOG AND HIS BELL
Perry 332 (Babrius 104)

There was a dog who used to sneak up and bite people. His master forged a bell for the dog and tied it onto him so that everyone would know when he was coming. The dog then paraded about the marketplace, shaking his bell back and forth. An old dog said to him, 'You wretched creature! Why are you so proud of yourself? This is not a decoration for bravery or good behaviour. You are shamefully beating the drum of your own evil deeds!'

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 20 Aug 2015 #permalink

But will any of this matter to our resident dishonest creep? No, because he doesn’t care about truth or honesty....

Pretty safe bet that he's not peer-oriented, though, and I'd assign a prior above 0.5 to his having regressed from peer relationships to his current state.

Based on the info its provided, See should be in its late 60s.

No, if you G–le the pseudonym, he's claimed to be 59-1/2 not too long ago. The implications are left as an exercise for the reader.

But the conductor of THIS train is doing fine. And so is his train.

I guess S.N. has been demoted from being a pilot. Or changed careers from TSA agent. Or something.

I’m putting you on my, shall we say, “No Fly” list, or telemarketers “Do not call” list.

And:

I’m putting you on the “No fly” list with some others (ref: #1206).

The "do not call" version makes no sense whatever, leaving only the "no-fly" version left for interpretation. Exactly what sort of air-travel model is imagined to anchor this metaphor?

Anybody can get in the seats, so it appears that the plane can never take off and the pilot is left hiding in the cockpit or maybe having filled the aisle with debris to secure access to the F lav, which doesn't really work on the ground, and maybe a galley, all the while with the passengers ridiculing more and more his intercom announcements and inability to do anything plane-related.

But no institution on the face of this earth has received greater scrutiny
and (often justified) condemnation,
and taken more extensive corrective action,
and paid out more monies in restitution
(over $2 billion, to victims whose alleged [sic] abusers were often long since dead and unable to defend themselves),
than the Catholic Church.

This is simply abject failure (and warmed-over to boot, IIRC). Hell, GSK had to cough up $3 billion just three years ago. The Tobacco Master Settlement was $206 billion.

Which of the following is more likely to be considered more bizarre and more unnatural and more embarrassing and more likely to be covered up by the victim:
1)A rape by a male of a female, or
2)A rape by a male of a male?
I would vote #2.
Why is why it’s so puzzling to me that more of the female RCC victims haven’t come forward, especially after the understandably (to me) more bashful boys lead the way, with they’re lawyers.

So female rape victims should think themselves lucky they don't have to put up with the bizarre and unnatural embarrassment that male rape victims do? SN surpasses himself in vileness, yet again. He has certainly succeeded in convincing me that the RCC is (at least in parts) "an evil, hypocritical, misogynistic, pedophile plantation".

But thanks for making the See Noevo Show #1.

Putting your underpants on your head and repeatedly shouting "bibble" will similarly attract attention. I really don't think that's something to be proud of.

By Krebiozen (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

Renate@1474

Strange kind of dialogue, where one person doesn”t react to questions, while twisting the answers (s)he gets in all kinds of ways, so they say what (s)he wants to hear, instead of what is really said.

This reminds me of something I had meant to address, prior to See Noevo's breakdown into pure, unadultered homophobia.

See Noevo@1413

I think this was the first time on this thread in which I addressed you directly, capn.

Nope. In #864 you asked me a question which I answered in #900. You did the whole ignore and move on thing that you seem so fond of. To be fair I also compared you to an extremist Muslim in #900; but I have since recanted given that you demonstrated you only follow the church when their beliefs align with yours. This of course, demolishes any argument from faith you make (not that that is a particularly strong argument in the first place); but this has also been covered and subsequently ignored. Reexamining the comparison to extremist Muslims led me to an interesting observation though. Recall in #901 See Noevo said:

“If – hypothetically for we know how much you like those – the next Pope degreed that contraception was acceptable (like ann demonstrated, there is precedent for that), would you as a dutiful Catholic start promoting contraceptions as God’s will?”

I would respond in the same way I would if hypothetically Jesus Christ himself came back to earth and declared murder is acceptable now and should be promoted.
I guess I’d start promoting murder.

cIn #1277 he said:

I think Pope Francis’ encyclical was largely, but not entirely, a disgrace of ignorance and lefty-politics.

demonstrating that the pope's word is not as absolute for See Noevo as it initially seemed. This raises the question: what kind of person would promote murder if instructed to by an authority but refuses to accecpt a dissenting opinion on AGW from a similar authority?

See Noevo@1470

*The so-called pedophilia problem in the RCC is really primarily a homosexual problem.*

And this is why I have trouble letting this thread die. This is the kind of dehumanization that incites violence against enitre groups of people. In case your irony meters are still intact, recall that this statement comes from a person who just quoted Elie Wiesel to support his position in #1332. Let that one marinate your thinking meat for a while.

Not that it will make any difference to a guy who thinks he knows better than the pope but:

Perhaps this is why Pope Benedict XVI himself, en route to the United States for his visit in 2008, responded this way to a question about the abuse crisis: "I do not wish to talk about homosexuality, but about pedophilia, which is a different thing." [emphasis mine]

Source: The Huffington Post
---------------
See Neovo@1431

How about the possibility that homosexuality is evil?

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

I'm back from break,
and folks, I see we’re still getting a lot of input from you out there.
But my call-screener tells me all the recent callers are on the “Do not call list.”
So, unfortunately, I won't be addressing them,
although we’re glad they’re still following me.

How about the rest of you out there?
Ellie, are you still “lurking” out there? Have you stepped on a scale today?
And archbishop 0-fer annie, have you flown away for good? Have you been "placated" yet?

Oh, that’s just a little humor. But, oh…
I’m told we have to take another quick break…

No? Oh. I’m sorry. This will be a longer break…
I’m going out into the global warming, and play some golf.

But keep those calls coming.
And we’ll see you later!

By See Noevo (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

So, unfortunately, I won’t be addressing them,

Oh brave Sir Robin.

See Noevo@1482

Ellie, are you still “lurking” out there? Have you stepped on a scale today?
And archbishop 0-fer annie, have you flown away for good? Have you been “placated” yet?

Some speculation into the mind of See Noevo
I think See Noevo deep rooted misogyny has been rather well established. It is also apparent that the overwhelming majority of See Noevo's responses are to women. This got me thinking, why is that? My guess would be that he the misogynist he is, See Noevo thinks of women as easier targets.

To any rational person that first belief would have fallen apart long ago. ann and shay are probably doing the best job countering See Noevo's bullsh!t out of anyone here. Of course See Noevo is far from a rational person. An alternative, though not mutually exclusive, hypothesis is that it bothers him significantly more when women disagree with him (because how dare they think for themselves).

If you look through See Noevo's point counting (ctrl+f "0-for") vs. ann you will see that in nearly every case where he awards himself a point he either dismisses ann or simply repeats himself without addressing a single point made by ann. Here's what I think is going on. See Noevo came into this believing that arguing with the women would be an easy win. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, his beliefs are so deep seated and his ego so big that he can't back down.

He is able to add the men to his "block list" but is scared to run away from the women because it would shatter the illusion of superiority. The insults are a desperate attempt to get the women to leave first so he can "save face". The comments about ann wanting to run away are nothing more than very transparent projections of his own feelings as the delusion comes shattering down around him.

PS, what are your thoughts on changing my signature to:
See Noevo@1470

*The so-called pedophilia problem in the RCC is really primarily a homosexual problem.*

I can't decide which quote more fully captures how much of a douchehat he is. Maybe I should make a "best" of list and just rotate them.
------------------------------
See Neovo@1431

How about the possibility that homosexuality is evil?

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

So I shouldn't feel neglected by the lack of insults: little weasel is simply ignoring people en masse.

Kind of a shame, altogether. I did not really expect him to display the minute level of awareness required to identify with the dog and his bell, but I did kinda' hope for a jab at a Christian who cheerfully finds wisdom in pagan writings as your more simple minded Catholic hard liners tend to frown on that sort of thing.

By Robert L Bell (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

@capnkrunch: you know, I think you're right. He responds to the women more than the men (except for Narad, whom he insults with masturbatory fantasies of his own). He rarely answers a point; preferring to jump back and make a new one. Or repeating something he's been told is wrong multiple times.
But hey, I'm sure he's having fun, and he makes for a reasonable chew toy. Although he and APV are getting really boring on their respective threads...nothing new to say, just repeat, repeat, repeat.
On the other hand, a laugh while I'm working is always welcome, even if it's in disbelief at the ridiculous things SN says.

Capn' Krunch: To be fair, Brave Sir Robin (SN) has probably never, ever spoken to an unrelated woman in his life, and he was probably an only child, reared among women indistinguishable from doormats who never talked above a whisper. He has never really come to terms with the real world.

Though it's interesting that a lot of the people who have such bile against homosexuals and women are usually just channeling their own self hatred. SN, find a nice man, and change your life. Or, you know, you could get off the 'net and try to experience the real world once in a while.

I've been thinking about this for a while, and it occurs to me that in both the anti-vax movement and the anti-choice movement, the important thing is not the actual children involved, but the idea of the child and the eternal conflict with the mother's identity. In both, there's the idea that babies and to some extent, children are a good thing, but neither movement has any use for disabled children except as basically, living flags. Both movements also have a high body count of disabled children, as parents are discouraged from loving them.
Evangelicals, in particular, tend to believe kids with Downs can do no wrong, but kids with FAS or other problems are willfully disobedient and need to be beaten, and it doesn't matter if they die as a result of that discipline. Even worse, a lot of them adopt 'disposable' children.
As far as the mother's identity goes, well, the choice is the same as it's always been: one can be a person, or one can be a mother. Evangelical mothers have to constantly guard their kids from the outside world, anti-vax mothers spend thousands of dollars on 'fixing' their kid (s), so they can turn the kid into a person they can brag about, rather trying to find an identity or ways the family can be happy. In both cases, misery is a sacrament.
I'd also like to point out the Sears are a fundamentalist family, which explains a LOT.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

Well, I’m back from a nice break.

And I got to thinking,
what is the one most significant finding from the 1400+ comments here regarding the original subjects of vaccines and abortion?

To me the most significant finding is probably this:

Even assuming a “no-problem pregnancy” (i.e. no physical health issues with baby or mother, no mental health issues with mother), and even assuming you had the power to forbid an abortion...

*NONE of you would forbid ANY abortion a mother wanted.*

And that’s pretty significant.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

"Forbid."

Very interesting choice of words.

See Noevo@1488

*NONE of you would forbid ANY abortion a mother wanted.*

And that’s pretty significant.

Counterpoint: See Noevo would absolutely forbid any abortion. Even assuming a life-threatening pregnancy of a 9 year old rape victim.

And that's pretty significant.

shay@1489

Very interesting choice of words.

The best part is that he won't be able to figure out why.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

SN: Why would we? If you mean forbid as in a blanket prohibition, most of us know how well that turned out. All it did was drive abortion underground and kill women.(Who are, y'know, people.) If you mean telling any woman in our immediate orbits not to have abortions, again, why would we? They're adults, and can make their own decisions. Maybe you've never talked to a grown woman before, or maybe you're dim.

Also, it's kinda telling you don't mention exemptions for rape or incest, or age. I dunno about you, but I don't like the idea of women being forced to give birth to monster-babies or born victims, and I really don't like the idea of a ten-year-old being forced to have a kid she can't take care of, didn't want, and that will be taken from her, so she goes through all that trauma for nothing. I suppose you're cool with that, like most Catholics.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

Following up on #1488 […**NONE of you would forbid ANY abortion a mother wanted.*],

The second most significant finding from the 1400+ comments here is closely tied to the first.
And it’s a confirmation of what I noted in #846.
That is:

*You are smokescreen artists.*

All your talk talk talk about exceptions for this or that (e.g. rape, incest, ectopic, preeclampsia, depression, whatever) is just a deliberate diversion from, and obstinate obfuscation of, your real agenda:

*Death to baby in ALL cases, if mommy wants.*
..............

I guess we’re both “extremists”.
I’m an extremist for life.
You all are extremists for death.

By See Noevo (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

Columbus has landed!

By See Noevo (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

Also significant that he takes it for granted that a woman will make the 'wrong' decision.

Here’s something you almost never hear about, something that still surprises me:

Yes, Scott Peterson was convicted of first degree murder of his wife, Laci, but
MORE NOTABLY, he was ALSO convicted of second degree murder of their baby in her womb. (And the convictions were in California, no less!)

Yet, if Laci had lived, and for some reason decided to kill her baby by abortion, for some “acceptable” reason (e.g. mental anguish over the pregnancy; whatever), she’d remain a free woman.

Odd, huh?

By See Noevo (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

You all are extremists for death.

That whooshing sound you hear is the point going over SN's head so far he couldn't bring it down with a Stinger (assuming anyone would ever let him near one).

As the judge remarked the other day, he's a solution looking for a problem.

*NONE of you would forbid ANY abortion a mother wanted.*

And that’s pretty significant.

Prove it. Provide, let's say, 8 quotes of people here saying that and I'll accept it.

But you can't. You never could.
And the fact you keep repeating this, despite failing for a week to find even eight relevant quotes is pretty significant.

Lying hateful creep.

Dude, depression, eclampsia, and ectopic pregnancies are actual medical conditions, which can result in the death of BOTH mother and child. But I'd guess you'd let them both die. And I suppose you can root for rape/incest monster babies and traumatized kids who have to give birth to kids(do you not realize that's also really fucking dangerous to the mother?). The rest of us will just be here hoping you die alone. Honestly, the best argument against being a Christian is you and your fellow scum.
Seriously, go find an MRA blog and go hang out with your fellow primordial slime. I'd say neanderthals, but that's insulting to the poor things.

By Politicalguineapig (not verified) on 21 Aug 2015 #permalink

Sometimes I feel like I'm actually the one running this thread. Every time I say I'm getting bored See Noevo doubles down on the outrageousness. Every time I make a prediction or propose a hypothesis he comes back with better proof than I could have made up. Case in point:

In #1484 I mention projection. See Noevo came back right away with this gem:

See Noevo@1492

*You are smokescreen artists.*

Hmmm... I feel like I've seen this very same behavior from See Noevo recently. Like maybe

See Noevo@1492

Even assuming a “no-problem pregnancy” (i.e. no physical health issues with baby or mother, no mental health issues with mother), and even assuming you had the power to forbid an abortion…

*NONE of you would forbid ANY abortion a mother wanted.*

Did you catch that? He snuck in two major caveats there. He had to really given that they've both been used as examples for when abortion would be unacceptable. It's the sneaky, tricksy way he did it that is the issue. Here's the answer key:

Even assuming a “no-problem pregnancy” (i.e. no physical health issues with baby or mother, no mental health issues with mother), and even assuming you had the power to forbid an abortion…

*NONE of you would forbid ANY abortion a mother wanted.*

I was thinking, and See Noevo is right in this being significant. It means he is the only one in this thread who thinks respecting a woman's ability to make decisions about her own body is a radical idea.

By capnkrunch (not verified) on 22 Aug 2015 #permalink

Are you feeling ignored, and a little down,
because I don’t respond to your questions or arguments?

Today is your lucky day!

Today, I shall deign to respond to each and every person submitting a position/argument –
yes, EVEN the ones on the “No fly”/ “Do not call” list!

But under one condition.

You see, I’ve heard many pro-abortion arguments over the years, but never any pro-abortion argument that made any sense.

*The condition* of getting a response from me is this:
You submit *JUST ONE* pro-abortion position/argument. (Ideally, your ONE position/argument will be your *favorite/best*.)

And I’ll respond!

Celebrate! It’s like a Jubilee Year or a Presidential blank amnesty! But more limited.

Think hard, and hit me with your best shot.

(Remember: Just *one*. I’m not going to spend forever with each person on every single thing he/she/it can think of.)

By See Noevo (not verified) on 22 Aug 2015 #permalink

*Correction* of typo:

Celebrate! It’s like a Jubilee Year or a Presidential *blanket* amnesty!

By See Noevo (not verified) on 22 Aug 2015 #permalink