Reply #84: heh

[iverglas]

I don't believe any DUers are "pro-life" then, as no DUer should believe that the government has any jurisdiction over telling a woman what to do with her body, whether it's having an abortion or sleeping with another woman.

It's really just an issue of semantics, though.


Would that you were right. (I suspect there is no stupidfaceiconthingy for "rueful half-smile".)

That there is the problem.

The immediate issue is the spate of scapegoating -- commitment to women's rights caused loss of votes, what "reframing" shall we do, blah blah. But the fact is that there's no shortage of genuine anti-choicers hereabouts.

Likewise, it doesn't matter whether a DUer believes a fetus is a person or not; what matters is that they still protect a woman's civil rights.

And the problem there is that it is simply, flat-out, 100% impossible to protect a woman's constitutional rights on an equal basis with men's if a fetus is assigned rights. Unless the fetus's "rights" are grossly violated. It's just an insoluble mare's nest.

Someone would have to invent a procedure that met due process requirements to decide which of two rights-holders -- woman and fetus -- would either be killed directly (fetus) or be compelled to die as a result of non-intervention to save her life (woman), in a situation in which it was not possible for both to live. Talk about yer Solomon; what tribunal could do that, and on what basis?! Some pigs are more equal than others??

As to the semantics, I don't really care what people who get offended by abortion but actively oppose interference in the exercise of women's rights call themselves. As long as they shut up about their theories as to how everybody hates abortion, everybody agrees that abortion should be rare, no woman ever wants to have an abortion, women wouldn't have abortions if they just had better income support, abortion is/should be a last resort only, blah blah. I don't need anybody speaking for me, especially when what they're saying is less than accurate.

I'd prefer it if they'd actually just shut up about everything but the rights issue, in fact, but that's a tactical issue (hey, maybe it really does persuade anti-abortion voters to vote for choice if someone who hates abortion but loves choice shares with them how nasty s/he thinks abortion is ...) so it is a subject of fair comment, I suppose. Sure would be nice if we could all just agree it's dumb and counterproductive, of course.