abortion

In which I (sigh) have to give Bob Lord a Pro-Choice 101 lecture

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I discovered this April 9th post of Bob Lord’s as I was searching for another one and decided to read it, though I’ve been avoiding his stuff as a general rule while the primary is still going on. I’ve also decided to make what began as a comment into a full post.

Bob, as you know, I’m the person you quoted here:

I personally could not care less what a male religious leader who believes women are walking baby machines thinks about our Presidential election but I can understand why either candidate would seek his favor.

This apparently inspired your tirade lambasting those of us who weren’t impressed by Bernie Sanders’ recent Pope-stalking junket and whom you believe to place too much importance on “abortion” as a campaign issue. Well, as someone who pays careful attention to what you still (despite “representing Planned Parenthood”) deem to be a trivial little ladies side issue that can, and must, be jettisoned whenever More Important™ issues (IOW those that affect men) are on the table, allow me to explain:

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That one comment that makes it all clear

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

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This guy.

The competition for Worst GOP Arizona Legislator Ever is stiff these days, given Rep. David Gowan’s not-smart snit toward reporters having the temerity to *gasp* report on things he’s doing. That’s pretty bad but, purely on the basis of shocking callousness, I’m going to have to go with Senate President Andy Biggs (pictured), who is currently running for Congress, while refusing to consider a bill that would provide health care to 30,000 Arizona children from low income families.

EJ Montini finds it to be pretty appalling:

Since the beginning of the legislative session Senate President Andy Biggs — who won a $10 million Publishers Clearing House prize a few years back – has refused to give Arizona’s hard-luck poor kids the health care they deserve.

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Cathi Herrod’s outrage over the FDA is yet another exposition of the narcissism, authoritarianism at the heart of the anti-choice movement

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monica miller
What, you thought it was about “saving babies”?

Thanks to the 1992 Supreme Court decision, Planned Parenthood v Casey, that made a “mess” of jurisprudence around abortion, GOP-led states have had largely free reign to pass intrusive restrictions on women’s health care under the guise of “health and safety”. While these laws are sometimes blocked by courts, anti-choicers continue to revive them, wasting millions of dollars in the process, in the hopes of exhausting opponents and/or getting more favorable court decisions as Republicans continue to stack the nation’s courts with ideologically friendly judges.

One such law was Arizona’s requirement that abortion doctors use outdated FDA protocol in dispensing abortion pills. The original label from 2000 recommended use of the pills only until the seventh week of pregnancy. But FDA guidelines are not laws and physicians commonly experiment with different levels and uses of medication to do what’s best for their patients. This is typical with many types of medications, not just for abortion. Arizona anti-choicers first tried to override the judgment of doctors on medication abortion in 2012, but were thwarted in court. This year, under Governor Doug Ducey, who is arguably even more anti-choice than his predecessor Jan Brewer, they brought it back as SB1324, which Ducey signed last week.

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Anti-choice leaders are lying as part of “strategy”. Believe that.

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More like Lie Site

This Life Site News article I linked to yesterday continues to get comments (more than a hundred now) and most of them express vehement opposition to the article’s thesis that the anti-abortion movement is not interested in prosecuting women. It appears that plenty of loyal readers of the site very much want to punish women and are offended by the suggestion that they don’t.

Here’s one comment, among the many, from an irate rank-and-file anti-choicer who bristles at the notion of letting women who murder their unborn children (in her opinion) escape from criminal liability:

All these many years I have considered myself pro-life, only now to be told by professional pro-lifers that I am most definitely not. How disappointing…

I’m sure somewhere in 126 comments it has already been said, but I do not understand this view that all women seeking abortion are ‘victims’. As a woman, I find this highly insulting. Certainly some women are coerced and threatened into procuring abortion, especially very young women and this must be taken into account, (and punish the one guilty of coercing her to the fullest extent!) but far too many women merely use abortion as birth control, many of them guilty of multiple abortions. I reject the claim that these women bear no responsibility for the murder of their own offspring. Factor in the advent of ultrasound and internet and it is even hard to give the benefit of the doubt that they are truly ignorant of the life growing within them not being merely a ‘clump of cells’. (The main reason PP hates ultrasound requirements and informed consent laws) Even Dorito’s commercials erode the chance of ignorance! They almost certainly know that it is a human life that they are taking, or are willfully ignorant.

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