To Live or Die 'On the Floor'Ironically, it will die on what Beltway insiders call the "Senate floor," and yet Mrs. Pelosi doesn't seem to care that there's a hemorrhaging amendment, slowly perishing from blood loss and septicemia on the carpet where Mitch McConnell might accidentally step in it.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sometimes sounds as if she has cast aside any attachment to reality. Responding to a bill co-authored by Rep. Joe Pitts, Pennsylvania Republican, that would prevent federal funds from going to pay for abortions under the slowly unraveling health care law critics call "Obamacare," Pelosi said that if Republicans vote for the measure, "they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and health care providers do not have to intervene."
The Protect Life Act passed the House last week, but will likely die in the Democrat-controlled Senate.
There are more stirrings on this fundamental social issue. The November 8 ballot in Mississippi will include Initiative 26, known as the Personhood Amendment, that says: "The term 'person' or 'persons' shall include every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof."I wonder what "the functional equivalent" of "the moment of fertilization" means, exactly? I presume it has something to do with carefully -- carefully! -- inserting an egg into your Realdoll™ before dropping your pants and "applying the hollandaise sauce," as it were.
In any case, now we know where corrupt billionaires who want to cheat death will go to have themselves cloned for spare parts, as they do in movies like Parts: The Clonus Horror, or Michael Bay's The Island (but I repeat myself).
I just never thought of these glossy, super high-tech secret installations being in Mississippi, but I guess it would allow the billionaires to drop off a sample rib, ala Adam, then swing by the Biloxi casinos and enjoy the loose slots.
Now if only Missouri would get off the pot and pass a similar law, they could compete for the abundant disposable income of these parthenogenic plutocrats. Maybe put together a vacation package in Branson: tissue donation, followed by a meal and "Yakov's Dinner Adventure" show at the Yakov Smirnoff Theater. "Get Your Remaining Ribs Tickled!" or "What a Country (For the Top 1%)!" I mean, the ad copy writes itself.
Perhaps an even greater counterattack on what former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop's seminal documentary on the issue "Whatever Happened to the Human Race?" referred to as "the slaughter of the innocents" is a series of initiatives organized by a coalition of pro-life groups to put legislation on ballots in every state requiring an abortion-minded pregnant woman to see a sonogram image of her fetus prior to termination.But suppose the woman just rolled her eyes, or studied her nails instead of attending to the image? To ensure compliance, the law would also have to require the patient to wear those clamps that propped open Malcolm McDowell's eyes in A Clockwork Orange. Which means there would need to be a staffer on hand to constantly drip Visine onto the pregnant woman's corneas, like in the movie, so when liberals complain that Republicans haven't offered a jobs program, you can tell them to piss off, Mississippi has it covered!
I have long favored this approach as a means to substantially reduce the million-plus abortions performed every year in the United States. It imposes no restrictions on abortion, but gives women information.
Information they might not have known, such as "We don't trust you to make decisions about your own body," and "Fetuses are masters of disguise. See that vague, shapeless lump? No, there. No, there...This thing! That's a fully formed baby, but it's using camouflage to blend into its surroundings and fool its natural enemy, the Abortionist. Being pregnant is like having a chameleon in your womb. Or the Predator ..."
The Chicago Tribune, reporting on the "Ultrasound Opportunity Act,"Also known as SB-341 or "The George Orwell Is Jealous Act." (Heaven forbid the government should cover health insurance, but paying for medically unnecessary embryonic Glamour Shots? Turn out those pockets, Uncle Sugar, this clump of cells is ready for its close-up.)
Mandating sonograms creates for "pro-choicers" an impossible intellectual, not to mention moral dilemma. If they oppose women receiving information, they are censors. Pro-lifers are aligning themselves with truth in labeling and truth in lending laws requiring that information be provided to women (and men) in order to help make decisions presumed to be in their best interests.Well, at first glance this doesn't seem like an insoluble dilemma -- it seems like transparent bullshit -- but as we know, intellectual consistency cannot be satisfied until the slippery slope becomes an avalanche, so let's follow Cal's logic. If the price of a woman choosing to terminate her pregnancy is the government first forcing her to undergo a medical procedure against her will, then what happens when she remains unmoved by the Rorschach test that results from sounding her innards?
Besides Awkward Family Photos of the uterus, the other impossible moral and intellectual dilemma anti-choice activists (or as we were taught by Judie "pro-aborts" Brown to call them, “an-cho-vies") is "fetal pain." There's no credible evidence it exists, but fortunately Republican lawmakers are no longer hung up on that kind of thing, so the next step would be a "Fetal Pain Opportunity Act," which would mandate that the attending physician repeatedly jab the patient's calves with a shrimp fork while she thinks things over.
When pro-choicers stand in the way of women receiving information about such a critical decision, they place themselves where they say conservatives reside, in the land of intolerance and ignorance.Oh -- I thought this was the land of Dairy Queen. No wonder they're not treating me right.
Okay, how about this: a law that requires abortion providers to perform a sonogram, free of charge, if the woman requests it? Of course, this would open states or the Federal government to the "free rider" problem, and they might find themselves funding procedures for women who just wanted a free ultrasound, and were only pretending they were considering abortion. Hell, I'd be tempted to take advantage of it myself, just to see if that gum I swallowed at age 9 was still in my appendix, like my mom predicted.
The response to this proposed legislation goes something like this: "You are insulting the intelligence of women who are smart enough to figure out these things on their own."They're not coming into the showroom to buy a zygote, so Caveat Emptor doesn't really apply. And if they were fetus-shopping, you can bet there would be corporations that would manufacturer them under unsafe and unsanitary conditions, cut corners, use inferior materials, import toxic embryos made by slave labor in China, or produce babies whose planned obsolescence would have them falling apart before their second birthday. But if you want to get the Consumer Protection Agency involved, Cal, why don't we require obstetricians to lecture every pregnant woman on every conceivable complication of gestation and child birth, from the merely unpleasant to the frequently lethal, before she's allowed to carry her pregnancy to term? Lawmakers could christen it "The Mary Wollstonecraft Maternal Fatality Information Act" ("On 30 August 1797, Wollstonecraft gave birth to her second daughter, Mary. Although the delivery seemed to go well initially, the placenta broke apart during the birth and became infected; puerperal (childbed) fever was a common and often fatal occurrence).
"Fine," I say, "then let's remove labels from cans, bottles and packages and do away with paperwork at the bank when a woman applies for a loan. Let's also rip Monroney stickers off vehicles at car dealerships because women should be smart enough to figure out the price, options and miles per gallon on their own."
The reason pro-choicers don't want women to see what their babies look like in the womb is because...they all look like Mister Peanut. It's a little disturbing.
...for too many of them, abortion has become a sacrament.Sadly true. And while it's one thing for Catholics to eat a wafer and call it the Flesh of Jesus, pro-choicers need to devour actual pieces of fetus, and if the abortion mills stop producing a fresh supply, there's going to be quite a bit of grumbling at the altar rail.
They embrace a right to kill while simultaneously denying the right to life. Showing a pregnant woman a picture of her baby in the womb, heart beating, can only enhance the possibility that the child will be given the opportunity to live.Plus, it would prepare the child to grow up in an America where all industries have been outsourced, and the only job available is Reality TV contestant.
Over many years of speaking to women who regret their abortions, the most common response has been, "If I had seen a picture of my baby, I would have made a different choice."The second most common response has been, "I saw your picture on the Op-Ed page, and realized I didn't want to bring a child into a world of devastating financial crises, catastrophic climate change, and constant upper lip shortages."
10 comments:
It's clear to me that in Conservative-land, no pregnant woman has EVER in her entire life seen any of those illustrations of the stages of fetal development, that she has never taken a health class or a biology class, and that she has never gone to a gynecologist or opened one of those What to Expect When You're Expecting books. How very odd things must be in Conservative-land. I wonder what color the sky is there.
So, the gentle, baby-protecting government mandating the administration and forced viewing of medical tests is okay because it's only about the giving and receiving of "information." However, requiring the giving or receiving of information that a person is not a murderer, certifiably insane, or an al-Queda terrorist before purchasing a gun is godawful socialist tyranny.
It's way past time for a Bonfire of the Dichotomies.
Number of unwanted children adopted by Cal & Ray Thomas since 1972, despite enormous incomes: zero.
BTW, "Get Your Remaining Ribs Tickled!" I love you, man.
As was once said about Newt, if you gave Cal Thomas an enema you could bury him in a matchbox.
As a senior citizen, I guess I'm supposed to agree with him, but I'm also a woman. I remember when abortion was illegal -- in fact, I had an illegal abortion in the early sixties. These sanctimonious twits and their talk about "babies" is such nonsense. If I had seen a picture of the fetus, it wouldn't have made ANY difference.
Now, at 69 years of age, I have not mellowed. I still hate Cal Thomas and his smug ilk with the heat of a million suns.
Now I better go double up on my blood pressure meds.
The little things do look oddly like Mr. Peanut, must agree.
In order to confirm the "moment of fertilization" the state must acknowledge the act. Does the state send a rep to visit the bedroom (or backseat of the car, or elevator) where conception occurs, then sign off on a state-registered form? Or do they have some integrated circuit that might be easily implanted into any fertile female to determine when slacker sperm finally makes a hit on the ovulation in question? Adults in their right minds would consent to raise children under such circumstances? This is truly evil. bullshite.
Mr Thomas and other conservative "men" really believe that women don't know exactly what is being removed from their uteri. In my daughter's sonogram she looked like a blurry image I took years earlier of Haley's Comet. But I kept her anyway, even tho warned she might have Downs. But, see, that was MY CHOICE.
.... Off subject: I had to have my kitty, Peanut, put to sleep. I am surprised at the intensity of grief I'm experiencing, as much if not more than when my parents died. Oh dear oh dear... my sweet husband helped me bury her in our side "bird garden" (couple of bird feeders, bird baths & scattered corn for the quail). She used to waken me in the night by patting my face with her velvety paw: she wanted to be petted RIGHT NOW, please! Loved to have her head & ears scratched. Sat behind my head on the back of my recliner...sometimes ran her claws thru my hair ("It's pettin' time!"). My daughter is equally distrait...
Cats are never off-topic at WoC. So very sorry for your loss, K. There is nothing trivial our attachments to the fur-bearing members of our households, or theirs for us, or even theirs for each other -- Riley was inconsolable after we had to put Hobbes to sleep.
With Doghouse having to say goodbye to Mr. Stinky , there's been way too much traffic on the Rainbow Bridge lately. It'd be nice if we could all take an alternate route.
I know we published a photo of Smokey aka Chester for Sheri's birthday; if you have a favorite picture of Peanut, we'd be happy to post it as a tribute. Unless that would be too painful. Just let me know know in email.
I'm pretty sure a lot of pregnant women (the ones with health insurance, or nearby low-income clinics) can see an ultrasound of their fetus if they want to -- I've never been pregnant, but it seems like a routine part of prenatal care. So it's not as though the horrible Planned Parenthood or anyone else (other than our capitalist economy which does not see health care as a right) is actually DEPRIVING women of ultrasounds. It's not like women CAN'T GET an ultrasound without this law. So conservative bullshit to the contrary, this is just another one of their hypocritical attempts to get government to force certain people to do things they don't want to do. As is said here so often, and can't really be said enough, conservatives are against "big government" regulation -- except for when they aren't. Unfortunately it usually seems to be women who are the targets of the xtian version of sharia law. No coincidence there, I suppose.
@Kwillow: So sorry to hear about your Peanut :(
I wonder what the Anti-Choice people will come up with next. Maybe, before a woman has an abortion, she has to be shown a series of computer generated pictures of her hypothetical child growing up, along with a narrative about how her child, if not aborted, will be the person who cures cancer. Then, she has to sign a statement that says "I, the undersigned, do admit that I am the most selfish and awful person in the history of the world." Then, during the procedure, professional mourners wail and moan and sing dirges while flinging ashes and soured wine into the woman's face.
"See?" Cal Thomas will say, "This imposes no restrictions on abortion, but gives women information and attempts to cripple her with guilt!"
Scott, dear heart, I hope that you will forgive me for forgoing this exercise in sadistic misogynist self-torture, 'cause I'm out of my blood pressure pills (I tend to double-down around election time...) and frankly, even the constant, too-highly-pitched-for-modern-technology-to-mediate-or-cover-up ringing in my ears isn't enough to distract me from the burbling lava of pure hatred that overflows my gut and wants to projectile-vomit at least 20 feet across my miniscule living room "area."
In other words, I'm too old for this shit!!!
Mebbe not chronologically, but definitely experientially. I wish that I had the physical strength and endurance remaining for my feral-cat work (with Bubbe-Boy gone, I now serve only one master, the ever-more-demanding Queen Of All who considers a computer in my lap as a direct insult to her primacy over all things), as well as the patience, determination, and downright orneriness to guard the gates of all local womens' clinics against firebomb-wielding, rosary-swinging, spitting-upon-the-volunteers "good christian" battleaxes who think that all our uterus are belong to THEIR dried-up, far-post-menopausal old cobwebbed asses. I wish. But wishes don't make happen, unfortunately, or I'd have been elected Queen Of My Goober Domain after having eliminated the world's most-evil Cyborg, aka Darth Cheney.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch... Just that post-mortem mortician's glamour shot of Cal's overdyed butternut-squash head was enough to send me into paroxysms of revulsion and spasmodically lashing-out in self-defense against the horrid flashbacks that he causes me to remember, from all of the OTHER crimes against nature that he's committed thus far.
Best wishes on hoisting this fucktard upon his own petard without losing all of y'all's respective lunches. Her Majesty hath invaded the world's most-hoopty hand-me-down recliner and is demanding her semi-hourly payment of attention, affection & fealty, so I should shaddup now, before Cal causes any MORE stomach-acid burns on my throat.
("expdenti" --- is that what we call the rip-job of the world's shittiest cheap-plastic denture-partial?)
And K, punkin', at least you know that Peanut has now had the opportunity to hang-out with the biggest stoner in cat history, my Bubbe-Boy, so they're either giggling maniacally or lounging laconically in high grass (so to speak) and naming the shapes of the colored clouds that pass overhead. If her velvety paws are anything like those of Her Royal High-Ass Biddy, then I know exactly how much you miss those tender touches. When my Nannie died, Bubbe-Boy & Biddy would each pick a hip and plant themselves in my lap; Biddy would purr louder than a Triumph with no muffler and Boy would reach up to my tear-streaked face and pat the drops from my face with lynx-large Maine Coon paws that were softer than a baby duck and more loving than any human could ever be. What other critter could ever console a broken heart so perfectly? I just hope that Peanut will let you know that she's still with you, even if you can't feel the pats, wiping your tears away the best she can.
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