Why am I not surprised that Amanda just doesn't get it?
Telling women just to abstain is wrong not just because it won't work, but mostly because it's mean-spirited and hateful to women. The best retort to abstinence is that women's increased freedom to have sexual pleasure without fear of pregnancy is a good thing. Abstinence-only arguments are, in essence, trying to say that pleasure itself should be punished. We need to keep anti-choicers on the defensive and ask them bluntly why they are opposed to women having pleasure, especially when it doesn't hurt anyone. Since there is not a single anti-abortion group that I've come across yet that supports contraception, this point is pretty unassailable. What is it about women having harmless fun that pisses them off so badly?
Wardle is right on about this-until people stop buying into the premise that sexual pleasure is somehow immoral in and of itself, they're going to be easily wowed by anti-choice arguments that assume that women should be punished for having sex. Of course, feminists have been making pro-sexual-pleasure arguments forever, so this post isn't chastising anyone for falling down on the job. It's just in this one area that I think we could spruce it up a little, by rejecting the -sex is inevitable- rejoinder and going on the offense with anti-choicers by asking why they think women shouldn't be free to enjoy sex if we want to.
I'd like to give her the benefit of the doubt that her mind is simply a weak one, rather than a blatantly dishonest one. Let's look at the issue of abstinence, shall we? Abstinence is hard, very hard, for a normal healthy adult to cope with, and I don't see any abstinence advocacy groups suggesting otherwise. In fact, I think it's pretty safe to say that they are acutely aware of how hard it is, considering how hard it is for them to convince anyone to be abstinent.
Abstinence has nothing to do with sexual pleasure except delayed gratification. It shouldn't take a degree in rocket science to figure that one out. There are no mainstream Judao-Christian groups that encourage sexual abstinence for its own sake, and throughout history, there have been no attempts by mainstream Judaism or Christianity to discourage sex inside of marriage except for ritualistic or health reasons.
When Amynda means "pro-sexual pleasure" arguments, what she really means is "arguments for sexual pleasure with consequences or restraint." This is because abstinence advocates and anti-abortion groups do not have any problem with her having sex out of principle, and they especially do not begrudge her her sexual pleasure. They simply have the audacious belief that there is a certain time in which these things should happen, and that that time is during a marriage.
Is it hateful to expect a woman to carry a baby to term? Well, if that be the case, then what about the legions of "liberated women" who still expect men to respond to the draft to fight a war--of any kind? Why is it that feminists like Amynda can find outrage in a woman being told to do something against her will with her body, but men are forced to bear the consequences of a woman's reproductive decisions at all times (even if she deceives him by falsely claiming to be on birth control)? Where is her principled commitment to the idea that if a woman chooses to risk getting pregnant, that she alone should bear the consequences of her decision since it was her body?
Oh but they want it both ways! She wants to be able to pick and choose, while forcing him to abide by her every decision. It's a thinly-veiled excuse to be a tyrant.
Women are free to enjoy sex, and I see a dearth of people calling for laws to change the legal situation. What Amynda is just bitching about is the fact that there are people who disagree with her. She can't enjoy getting laid until there is no one left who would say "that's not right" to her. Excuse me while I indulge in a bit of schadenfreude on that one. I think it is hilarious that she is so tormented by the harmless opinions of others because it is a problem entirely of her own making and indulgence. If you were strong, Amynda, you wouldn't be losing sleep over this.
Something for Pro-choicers and Pro-lifers to concider.....
World estimations of the number of terminations carried out each year is somewhere between 20 and 88 million.
3,500 per day / 1.3 million per year in America alone.
50% of that 1.3 million claimed failed birth control was to blame.
A further 48% had failed to use any birth control at all.
And 2% had medical reasons.
That means a stagering 98% may have been avoided had an effective birth control been used.
I am a 98% pro-lifer, 2% Pro-choicer, who has no religious convictions at all . I didn't need the fear of god or anything else to come to my decision, just a good sense of what is right and wrong.
You see we were all once a fetus. Is it beyond the realm of possibilities that when your mother first learned she was carrying you, she may have considered her options? What if she had decided to terminate? Would that have been OK?
You would not exist, if you have children they would not exist, and your (husband or wife) would be married to someone else. You would have been deprived of all your experiences and memories. In this day and age with terminations being so readily available and so many being carried out, if you make it to full term
you can consider yourself lucky. Lucky you had a mother that made the choice of life for you. Don't you think they all deserve the same basic human right, LIFE?
I'm all for contraception, prevention is certainly better than termination.
Did you know you can get an implant that is safe, 99.9% effective, and lasts for three years? Just think girls not even a show for three years, wouldn't that be great? I think too many people rely too heavily on the last option (abortion), I think if abortions weren't so readily available people would manage their reproductive system far better resulting in a fraction of the number of unwanted pregnancies.
World wide there are over 50 MILLION aborted pregnancies each year. In America 3,500 terminations carried out every day, that's over 1.3 million every year, 50% of all cases claimed that birth control had been used, 48% admitted they took no precaution, and 2% had a medical reason. That's a staggering 98% that may have been prevented had an effective birth control been used. Don't get me wrong, I suspect the percentages in Australia would be much the same.
Just a lot of unnecessary killing.
At the point of conception is when life began for you. This was the start of your existence. Your own personal big bang. Three weeks after conception heart started to beat. First brain waves recorded at six weeks after conception. Seen sucking thumb at seven weeks after conception.
I am convinced that in the not too distant future, people will look back at many of the practices of today with disbelief and horror.
Want to know how to find humanity-?
True humanity can only be achieved, by concidering others/ caring about others, as much as, if not more than yourself.
Bill Clinton once said that abortions should be available , safe and RARE. He is a very wise man.
I'd like to see an ultrasound in every clinnic to provide a more informed choice, before going through with something they may regret.
I'd also like to see effective birth control made available to all who can't afford it.
Wow. The comment was longer than the post. Well thought out, but...
I liked the post, Mike. It all comes down to what is best for me. Everyone else be damned. I will do what I want and if you get hurt, well too bad!
It's funny how I am anti-choice and they are pro-choice.
I like to think I am pro-life and they are anti-life.
Oh well.
Edit that part above to "It all comes down to their philosophy of what is best for me."
Man, it looked like I was advocating something I didn't want to advocate.
Amynda has a conscience....
Yes, that apparently she keeps locked up in her safety deposit box so that she can look at it from time to time for her own amusement.
I think it was pretty obvious what you mean, Roland :)
I think you're too easy on Amynda giving her the "dumb girl out." Like most feminists, she's of sufficient intelligence (though intellectually cauterized) to know what she's doing - redefinition and verbal misdirection. Amynda may have a conscience, but there's also a reason the phrase "feminist virtues" is so rare.
Once one gets out from behind the slogans ("Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings") to the presumptions behind them and the consequences of them ("Feminism is the radical notion that women should be able to do whatever they want and suffer neither cost nor consequence") it becomes apparent how vacuous the whole philosophy is.
And even feminists are smart enough to know that, which is why they cloak it all in irrelevant truisms and silly assertions.
Since abstinence means hatred of sex, I can only assume that jackrabbit promiscuity means a love for having a bun in the oven.
El Borak,
You're right about the slogans. I can't really add anything else to that :)
Wes,
Depends on what you mean by oven...
If ya don't use it, ya lose it!
What it is, is defined as... to each is their own.
Hmm, sex.
Mmmm, sex!
It's not just about creation.
Sex was made to be enjoyed!
Be safe, have fun and SMILE :)
My comment was deleted from her blog and it wasn't even derogatory. It was just posing a very logical question that I knew I wasn't going to get an answer to.
WW,
Her problem is that she is going to wear it out, not lose it.
Difster,
What did you expect from her on that one? That she would actually sit down and have a cordial debate with you? This is a shrieking feminist we're talking about here :-P
"That she would actually sit down and have a cordial debate with you?"
Feminism is to cordial debate what Leonard Nimoy is to musical excellence.
Or put another way,
Feminists: LAPD
Logic: Rodney King
Fetuses are not beings. To be a being you must
be conscious and that means accessing as a part
of that ongoing attentiveness the total memory
of your life so far in the form of a story you
tell yourself. If "you" don't do it, there isn't
any "you". The proof that fetuses do not is that
while all of our bodies were once fetuses, none
of us remembers it at all! If our fetus had been
a being, then we would remember it, that's what
being MEANS. We don't, and so our fetal bodies,
however biologically alive, were not Living in
the sense of experiencing any life as a Self,
and that which is not a being is then either a
mineral, or a plant, or a lower animal all of
which we may kill for food or for our convenience.
Yes, convenience, another word for what we need
and want to do with our lives. And abortion is
an important tool for us to prevent getting us
enslaved to offspring before we decide to be.
Now if you want to go join PETA so that you won't
be a hypocrite, then do so, but otherwise, there
is NO defensibility to an anti-abortion position.
And by the way, the notion that we owe some debt
to our parents for not aborting us is purest
nonsense, because if it weren't us who existed as
a being, then it would be someone else, who then
might not or could not exist as they would then
or else not as that person at all, and so whose
life would we really be defending anyway and at
who else's expense? Whatever happened happened
and it cannot BE changed by what-if'ing, humans
forget that alot. Nothing even COULD be other
than as it occurred, or else it would have!
If your mother had aborted you, you'd have never
known it and someone else would have been born,
perhaps, or perhaps not, but the notion is
entirely irrelevant. We don't worry about the
outcome of every rock we move or thing we touch
just because it might cause some bunch of people
not to ever have been born in some non-existent
future. Nor do we fret about sperm and run around
trying to collect them and get them someone to
impregnate. (Do you remember "every little sperm
is sacred" from Monty Python. That was the point
THEY were making there.)
Just like the present is unary the future is also
unary, there is only one of them for us that we
will ever experience. Alternate futures are like
alternate presents, non-existent for our purposes.
It's as nonsensical as the nuts who thank their
imaginary Gawd for putting them on a planet where
they could breathe instead of the airless moon
or some such. We EVOLVED to feel this place was
pretty benign, or else we wouldn't have survived
and all the many other alternative less-suited
lifeforms no longer living here would not now be
extinct! It's NOT some magical coincidence that
needs to be enacted by a deity! It's just that
we're the local survivors, nothing more.
Steve
So someone who is put into a coma is no longer a human being? How do you know that they will come out of it? If "being" requires consciousness, then everyone who is in a coma, no matter how recent, is fair game for being put down in your worldview.