Vaginas Must Be Republican Kryptonite

This is terrifying. This is a clear, and terrifying violation of our rights as women, and I’m not just talking about Constitutional rights, I’m talking about the right that says I AM ALLOWED TO DECIDE MY OWN FUTURE, AND WHETHER OR NOT I WILL BE A MOTHER. If you’re so concerned about the baby, bring me a surrogate, we’ll do a transfer, then YOU can birth and raise it.
Have fun.

“What she said was offensive…”

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2164

5th panel… Man, I <3  Zach Weiner.

Perhaps the worst part of this is that Rep. Callton would not say “vagina” in front of women. That’s some incredibly sexist bullshit when he thinks we’re too delicate to talk frankly about our own body parts, or that he apparently sees no harm in talking about vaginas in front of men.

This both frightens and saddens me.  I had an friend a few years back that worked for Planned Parenthood, I don’t know what she did, professionally she was an artist but also a staunch feminist and she told me that should abortion legislation ever be overturned she and others were planning to learn how to preform abortions safely and secretly so that women would not have to return to back ally butchers and hacks (like an underground railroad for abortion).  At the time I thought she was being extreme, now though maybe not.   This of course was just one woman talking about her dedication to womans rights and safety, not an agenda of Planned Parenthood.  Though, as a woman, a liberal and a gun owner I wonder if I could go to the republican convention this year as its just across the bridge from me and shoot those legislators who would disregard my rights so easily.  Florida is a “stand your ground state” after all and these people present a real danger to my rights to my life. Please note that last sentence was not at all serious as I hope I never have to harm another as long as I live.  I never comment though I’ve followed this blog for years, this just struck a chord in me.  And if they balk at the word vagina, what would happen if they were called out in public as being cowardly cunts?

Can’t wait until we’re officially a third world theocracy. Won’t be long now.

Good night, nurse. I’m GAY and don’t even mind the word “vagina.” These guys need to grow some testicles (i.e., be adults) and grow up. Too bad that I don’t live in Michigan because I would vote for her in a flash, just for that speech.

I think anyone in such a position who finds the body to be offensive need to get out of the House floor, go back to their play rooms, and stay there until their balls drop. If you can’t fucking handle how the female human body works, let alone the human body in general, you are in a piss poor decision to make any rules regarding the body.

This is how life works gentlemen. Either Grow up, or get the hell out and let the actual adults handle these things.

you cant transfer a fetus you moron

Things are alive, starting at sperm/egg, then the zygote, the fetus, etc. All are alive no question there.

Are they people? To me, it is quite clear that a fertilized egg is not a person. As to a 9 months fetus, that is harder to differentiate. It is a good thing that abortions happen much earlier.

Regardless of whether the fetus is a person or not. It is still true that nobody has any duty whatsoever to, for example, donate organs to other people.  As usual, your rights finish when the rights of others begin. And a forced pregnancy involves that, a woman donating her organs and body for months to another person.

Thus, anti-choicers are not only arguing that a fetus is a person, but that the fetus is some sort of super-person. Deserving of far more rights than what a person normally gets. The right to force another human being to sacrifice her body to allow it to live.

But regardless, you are free to believe that aborting is wrong. And you would be welcome to use that opinion in case you do get pregnant have to decide between staying pregnant or not – The pro-choice stance is that if you think abortion is wrong, you can choose not to do it. But please leave other people with a different opinion in this, horribly subjective topic to pick other decisions.

I think a woman would be more insulted to refer to her own genitalia as “Va-jay-jay”. When you have a show called “The Vagina Monologues” in the US, how can this incident be deemed damning?
And compared to the seemingly vulgar act of telling our kids how sex works, how is this so damning? 

My intention is not to discuss the admittedly sticky matter of what is and is not a life.  Rather I’m concerned with the frame, apparent all throughout this thread, presented by pro-choicers.  They contend that pro-lifers are all about restricting woman’s rights, that keeping women down and perpetrating patriarchy are the primary, often sole, purpose of pro-lifers. 

It seems that the pro-choicers refuse to even consider the possibility that pro-lifers are motivated by a desire to protect life (whether you agree with the pro-life definition of life is inconsequential for this particular discussion) and that they’re not mean old men trying to “get inside a woman’s vagina.” 

Note that the pro-choice side refuses to even acknowledge legitimate and I would say admirable motivations for the pro-life side.  No, we’re all just evil men keeping women down!  

As soon as there is an in utero test for gayness, abortion will be legal and encouraged in all 50 states. If there is one things conservatives like less than women’s rights, its the gheys.

Who should decided when is the “right” and when is the “wrong” time for an abortion? Do you think we should spend time money and energy thinking of every imaginable scenario on the planet that a woman may want an abortion, or should we just simply let the women decide?

Have you ever considered the possibility that the pro-life position is solely based on convincing self righteous privileged assholes that they have the right to tell others what to do with their bodies? No one is forcing abortions. Mind your own damn business.

Personally, I support the absolutely unfettered right of a woman to have an abortion for any reason. Because the future child will have an illness. Because it will be gay, or not gay. Because it will be a boy. Because it will be blonde. Any reason. At any time, up to where science and society choose to label it a person (probably, sometime in the third trimester, and after that if it’s a matter of the mother’s health). To me, the reason isn’t an issue at all.

And FYI, you can’t abort a baby.

You know what she ment jackass.

“pro-lifers are motivated by a desire to protect life”

But once the baby is born, the Republican party will do as little as possible to protect its life.

As did i…

 If the antichoice side ever did anything to support life outside a woman’s uterus I’d begin to believe their claims that they’re working to preserve life rather than control women.  So far they haven’t risen to the challenge.

As someone who grew up southern baptist, I can assure you it most definitely is not always “a desire to protect life”. Some have convinced themselves it is. Just Google the phrase “male gynecologist” and see all the fundamentalist bullshit that comes up. There is a lot of sexual repression and deep-seated jealousy/possessiveness that drives much of what I see as the “debate” over women’s issues. If they were actually concerned about life, they would be willing to have a practical discussion on what constitutes life and not just fall-back to defaults based on flaky dogma. 

Mike Callton should expect a visit from the Daily Show in the next few days. I would guess Samantha Bee will be going to say “vagina” to him quite a lot.

Seems like the next legislation Brown and Byrum should introduce is a bill to ban all proper medical terms from the House floor. If they object to that, they’re contradicting themselves.

So of course they’ll object to that.

Next step? A bill to ban all grown-up words.

Speaking of which, as a card-holding Baby-Eating Atheist, those Michigan Republicans are starting to look mighty good. Add enough BBQ sauce, and I bet you’d hardly notice the saturated-with-feces taste.

Oops. I used an offensive word. My bad. I meant to say that they’re wah-wah babies and full of shit.

 lol that possibility has been considered many times and thoroughly refuted more times than the claim that there are no transitional fossils. There’s no point wasting server space on that old claim. Find yourself another excuse.

If you desire to protect life, go chain yourself in Washington to protest against all the undeclared wars your country is making in three different continents and all the innocents your army is killing.

Perhaps there should be a list of words that are forbidden to be said in the chamber: reason, logic, and that horrible v word.

if they balk at the word vagina, what would happen if they were called out in public as being cowardly cunts?

Calling them cunts would be disparaging cunts, not the other way around 🙂

This.

 Actually, can I get a biologist to weigh in here? Given that it’s possible to impregnate a woman using IVF, so half the “transfer” is possible already, is it not possible to extract the zygote from another woman if caught at a stage when it’s still completely composed of stem cells?

Assuming extraction of a single celled zygote is possible (and I’m not sure if there’s a reason it shouldn’t be) the only thing I could think of that would prevent a successful transfer is rejection by the surrogate mother. Immunosuppressants maybe?

(All hypothetical of course)

Corrections : why the 9 year old was excommunicated too, and *try again.

Send them all a link to this youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WXNAG8Zwug
It’s… very much topical XD

Exactly. And it was realizing this that helped swing me from pro-life to pro-choice.

“Respect the decorum of the house.” Wow. First rule of Vagina Club…

What better way to silence the opposition than to ban them.  Seems to me the conservatives aren’t even pretending to live in a representative democracy any more.  It’s all out theocracy for them.

Actually, a biologist might agrue that sperm/egg, zygotes, and fetuses are NOT life, because they don’t match the scientific definition of life. By definition, an organism is considered “alive” when it can undergo metabolism, maintain homeostasis, possess a capacity to grow, respond to stimuli, reproduce, and adapt to their environment in successive generations through natural selection. Obviously, the latter two points are for when an organism is in an adult state, but the rest of the points are required for something to be “alive”.  

So, a fetus is “alive” at about 20 weeks then?

The GOP is an evil entity. How any self respecting person cannot see that is beyond me, and beyond hope.

GOP = Gross Old Patriarchs.

NO MORE.

And what six Dems voted for this horrible bill?

Does it really matte what we call him? All we know, by actions, is he is a very dangerous and repressive old fucker.

Concentrate on getting him out, not on what is the proepr term to call him.

I’m more disgusted by the 6 democrats that voted for it than the typical republican misogynists.

VAGINA POWER!!!!

 Please do elucidate as to what the proper political term for female genitalia is.

She has the good sense to make secular arguments in a secular governing body of a secular nation, even if they are rooted in her faith. Other religious people should follow her lead!

I LOVE that GOP deacronym!

 The pro-life position may be solely based on what constitutes life, but unfortunately, the entire issue of abortion is many times more complicated than that single, simple judgment call – and it is that, by the way. Controlling women – i.e., removing their ability to choose for themselves – IS one of the side effects of all this anti-abortion regulation, whether you choose to focus on it or not.

It’s easy to do a slippery slope on any issue. One mark of being a mature, thinking individual is to be able to determine where on that slope you stand, and make coherent arguments for it. It doesn’t need to be all the way at the top OR all the way at the bottom for it to be valid and defensible. Another mark is to recognize that issues and complications come up with even the most reasoned, defensible stance – and those issues will and can be taken up one at a time and reasoned through.

I’d just call it prudishness. The inability to talk about anything that’s even remotely sexual. Very common in America.

You should pay for my health insurance – otherwise you hate men. 

PENIS POWER!!!!

”  but rather because she tried to smear the speaker of the house, right?”

I’m guessing the *context* is lost on you.  After all the speaker is supporting a bill that would effectively tell this lady what she can and can’t do with her vagina that he is definitely interested in.

Yup, the Republic of Gilead.

I’d say that sex-selection is potentially problematic. In certain societies (like China and India) it is having a social impact, although there’s also evidence that the problem is self limiting, as apparently the value of female children is increasing in those places.

In the U.S., sex-selection is rare, and has no societal impact at all. If that should change, we can look for rational ways to deal with it. But until that happens (and it’s very doubtful it ever will), we’re far better off not trying to define the reasons why a woman can or cannot get an abortion.

She’s also not telling other people to keep four sets of dishes in their house.

“I’m flattered that you’re all so interested in my vagina, but no means no.”
I think that’s my new favorite quote on abortion, haha 🙂
Also, wtf? “I wouldn’t even say it [VAGINA] in mixed company.” Seriously? In no way is saying “vagina” offensive, especially in the context in which she used it. She wasn’t making a sex joke or saying anything that was in any way perverse. She was using a medical term for female anatomy. Get over yourself, Callton.

It appears that the only way that the opponents to these bills  can argue is to throw out the word vagina in an attempt to claim sexism.  The Michigan bills set medical standards for the abortion clinics that are consistent with other out patient surgical clinics.  They also shockingly require that the clinics have malpractice insurance and , get ready, actually require a doctor to be present during the procedure.  They also require that the doctor make sure that this is actually the ladies choice and that she is not being coerced.  How dreadful is that!. For all those that scream, that abortion needs to be legal so that women can make that choice and have it done in a safe medical environment, these bills assure that that actually occurs and Planned Parenthood objects.  What that shows is the truth behind that vile organization-  its all about the money.

My canoe and the little man in the boat seems rather apropos, especially since this was a Michigan pol, the home of Hiawatha.

 Yeah, because the typical route to the Uterus is through the…..Oh, fuck I give up.

We know uteri are more relevant to a discussion about abortion than vaginas.  Brown probably knows it to.  I think her point was more about the debate that had been going on. 

A: Doctor performs trans-vaginal ultrasound on patient because doctor decides said ultrasound will aid in the procedure he or she is going to perform.

B: Doctor performs trans-vaginal ultrasound because the state compels him or her to do so, regardless of the indvidual situation or the doctor’s professional recommendations.

See the difference?

And way to blow over that strawman–no one is blaming doctors for performing trans-vaginal ultrasounds.  No one.  People are, however, rightly pissed that legislators with no medical training whatsoever are attempting to force doctors into performing them, regardless of the situation.  It doesn’t matter if it’s something that most doctors do as part of their regular routine.  It’s ultimately the doctor’s–and patient’s–decision.  NOT the state’s.  If a woman does not want a procedure performed that her doctor doesn’t think is necessary in her case (she’s been raped and it brings on powerful triggers, the pregnancy is visible with a regular ultrasound, etc.) but the state says that she cannot have an abortion unless she has a trans-vaginal ultrasound, that’s coerced rape.  They’re forcing her to have a wand inserted into her vagina against her will (and her doctor’s medical decision) in order to obtain an abortion–a legal medical procedure–even if it isn’t medically necessary.  If my doctor thinks I should have a procedure done because it is in my best interests, fine.  If my doctor is forced to make me undergo a procedure whether it’s necessary in my case or not, then that’s coercion by the state. Giving that power to the state–to a bunch of jackasses who don’t know ectopic pregnancy from preeclampsia–is insanely dangerous, and a completely unethical way to practice medicine.

you are a true asshole. No sugar coating it. Plus, you think her wording was to be dismissed because it is disrespectful? What is more disrespectful? A bunch of evil, old white men telling women what they can do with their vaginas/uteruii/vulvas etc? Or the fact that someone dared stand up to them and say “We WIll Not Be Treated as Second Class Citizens!”

You and your ilk R”Law” are the true problem in this country and world.

Let me tell you something slick, you are a fucked up, vile, inhumane and inhuman bag of blood and protoplasm. You rob the moral people of oxygen and use your FUCKED UP MYTHS and incoherent “logic” to try and repress entire segments of the population based on nothing but a book of myth and some asswipe named “jesus” who by most arcehological accounts NEVER EVEN EXISTED AS JUST A HUMAN IN THE FIRST PLACE.

I am fed up with you and your type, and the fact you are trying to push the country, and world, back into the dark ages.

I wish nothing but a foul plague upon you, your scummy wife and your children. You are vile and gross and should do the world a favor and take your own life.

Maybe she should give the house copies of 
http://cdn.sobadsogood.net/wp-content/uploads/10-worst-book-covers-in-the-history-of-literature-6.jpg

Mind sharing your age bracket?  Emigration is easy.  Immigration gets harder as you get older.  Although I presume Botswana is probably easier than Denmark.

No, it’s not a real issue. It’s a fabricated issue, just like in the U.S. Not enough Canadians, or Americans, are selecting the sex of their children to have a measurable effect on the ratio of boy/girl births. There is no social impact.

This is something that the anti-abortion folks are attempting to use as a political tool, that’s all. Every exception or legal roadblock they can create to legal abortion brings them one step closer to their goal of eliminating it completely.

These men are sexual predators. They are attacking the women of their state as surely as any rapist ever did. The fact that they are on the street is bad enough, let alone in charge of the legislature.

Hey Rich,

No worries. I am 44.

Botswana is intersting in if you invest enough (in my case, purchasing the eco-lodge) in the country or its national parks and preserves, you are allowed permanent resident status fairly quickly and easily. There are still some hoops to jump through, but none too difficult, provided of course (isn’t this always the case though) you have ample funds and means.

I also am fortunate in two ways:

a) I did well with my two careers and was able to invest wisely, save a few dollars and made some smart moves vis-a-vis houses and property

b) I am one generation-removed from Norway on one side of my family, and based on that, if I choose, I could apply for permanent resident in Norway based on lineage/heritage. Once I become fluent in Norwegian and meet some citizen criteria, I can apply for citizenship and a passport. I will most likely do this in about a decade, as I hope to spend at least ten years in Botswana and exploring that portion of Africa. I am a fairly “feral” guy (as if you couldn’t tell from my snakr and *ahem* exhuberance in argumentation) and live for wild open spaces that are still somewhat untamed – most likely a result of growing up in Alaska.

Anyway, I will say this about the USA, I will absolutley miss the natural history. Man, I tell you Rich, the USA is FANTASTIC in terms of wilderness, ecosystems and natural history! I will very much miss what North America has, but then again, Africa doesn’t suck!

It is sad that things are getting/have gotten to the point in this country that people have to leave. But I honestly do not see it getting any better. And when you see asswipes like RWLaw and his ilk turning the country into a Christian Taliban/Theocracy, couple with the average slob in the street being convinced to vote against their own interests (witness the Wisconsin recall ecelction) I see it as writing on the wall. We get ONE SHOT at life, and I feel emotionally drained and depressed from the changes in this once great country. Because we only get one shot, and I honestly do not see it getting any better, it is time to go.

Would you have rational discourse with Pol Pot or Ceucescu?

Go fuck yourself you vile, oppresive, repugnant, dishonet, spinning, self-righteous horro of a human being.

Of course it’s also about vaginas you disingenuous braindead donkeyfucking asspool. The GOP not only want control of women’s wombs, but their sexy naughty bits as well.

FFS. PAY ATTENTION.

 Really??  That’s the argument you are going with?  Then why would the gavel not be used every time a lawmaker speaks from the “heart”.   Using a proper medical term incorrectly should get you banned!!!  “I have a gut feeling”… no, no representitive… you are out of here – that’s not even a medical term. 

Well, I’m an Atheist, so talking to my preacher isn’t going to do much good. 

And my MD/PhD (in Neuroscience)  probably trumps your masters degree.   As I’m sure you learned in your medical ethics classes, a fetus becomes viable at about 20-22 weeks nowadays. 

Anything else you’d like to add?

hey dickstain,

I would bet that most of the usual posters here would support a single-payer health plan for ALL, which would include you. So, I would say, careful what you wish for slick.

Out of curiosity, do you support a national health plan? Do you think “Obama/Romney” care (remember, ol’ Mittens passed the same basic health plan in Massachusetts when he was the Guv) is “socialized medicine”? DO you support the troops and military? DO you support VA hospitals? DO you like watching football? You knowm the NFL and all? You like the NFL?

Answer those HONESTLY and without typical GOP spin, and I will then get out the scalpels and begin to tear you and your “notions” apart.

you are lying, and you know it. You do not have a Phd in neuroscience. You wouldn’t be wasting time here if you did.

And tell me slick, where di you get this alleged degree? Where did you do your post-doc? Intership? Residency?

Where di you study? How many schools did you interview at before getting accepted into the medical program? What rotations did you go through before deciding on what was it, oh yes, neuroscience?

How about some citations?

Wow.  This thread is bringing out all the femi-NAZI’s.  

Guess what.  When you decide to have unprotected sex and get pregnant, you are now responsible for the lives of TWO people – you and the fetus. 

I guess your great parents never taught you that.  

Do you really want to compare degrees?  I have a MD/PhD. 

I’ve also been an assistant to numerous abortion procedures. 

I’m not anti-abortion.  I think that it is a valuable tool to reduce unwanted pregnancies during early pregnancy.  However, I’ve also been involved with some late-term elective abortions and I’m not very proud of that.   Abortion is not a very pleasant thing – for everybody involved, which is why I’m against it.  If a mother waits until 20 weeks to get an elective abortion, something is wrong.  Very wrong.  If you’ve been witness to a late-term abortion, you know what I’m talking about. 

Yes, there are cases when a fetus has some congenital defect and that is truly devastating to the family.  But most of these things can be determined (and aborted) well before 20 weeks. 

Plus, the only pregnancy that is truly a risk to the mother’s life  is an ectopic one. 

It was only a matter of time until you revealed yourself…..femi-nazis…really? 

Because we know all preganancies come from having unprotected sex right? 

Fsq and I are practicing our “Good Atheist/Bad Atheist” shtick to take on the road.

I offer clarity:

“femi-NAZI’s” (WTF is the apostrophe there for?) as you and your ilk use the term are defined as “Women who refuse to shut up and be willing fuck toys for Good Ol’ Boys and who also won’t cook, clean, handle all of the icky parts of raising children on their own. Also, they refuse to bring me a beer while I’m watching football and rub my feet on command.”

Those damned wimminz, eh? All uppity and voting and demanding equal rights and refusing to get the FUCK back in the KITCHEN. This country is falling apart lemme tell you.

 I would think that finding the little bugger would be a bit of a task.

Yes, those 0.1% failure rates for contraception are probably the cause of the majority of unwanted pregnancies in this country. 

Oh wait, they aren’t.  Try again. 

 Most people just don’t know the difference.

It strikes me as very prudish at best.  But it wouldn’t surprise me if it turns out that this was simply crocodile tears, and it was just a ploy to shut her out of the discussion by any legal and procedural means possible.

As an aside, I know about the town he hails from.  Being from Nashville, MI is not something to be proud of.  It’s a small rural town known for disproportionately high poverty rate, alcoholism and meth use.

 They turned it into a political matter by trying to legislate it.

 Or that having a clear sense of the significance of teh term is simply beyond him.

When you assume that consent to sex equals consent to pregnancy, you are using pregnancy to punish women for having sex. Consent to sex =! consent to pregnancy.

this^^^^^

 So you’re nitpicking terminology AND you’re tone trolling.

I think you’ll find a great many things which are capable of entering the uterus go through the vagina, too.

Oh goodness I’m feeling faint. So many uses of va.. va.. oh my I can’t bring myself to say it. Good thing I wasn’t on the house floor, I might have fainted dead away. I’m just so fragile. Thank goodness those republicans will make sure no ones uses that awful word in front of me. *Gets into time machine back to 1850* 

No, I can’t find any rational reasons to encourage state action on that issue.  Because this is America, not China or India, and it has never once been a problem here.  If it ever starts to become a problem that actually has a big negative impact on society, we can have that discussion then.

Or do you want EVERY possible future problem to be legislated against in advance, no matter how unlikely it is to become a real problem, and no matter whose current freedom it would restrict and no matter how ugly and restrictive the process of enforcement would be?  Maybe we should pass a law saying that all dead people must be shot in the head, so that they can’t come back as zombies…and if that’s a little traumatic to loved ones, or against people’s religious beliefs, too bad, we just can’t take the risk.

It’s funny how people are willing to engage in all kinds of speculation about possible problems when the issue is letting women control their own bodies.   It’s almost as if facts, logic, and reason go right out the window and people reveal that they really do believe that they should be able to control the most intimate details of other people’s lives!    

Don’t forget that the legislated ultrasound is performed at least a day before they are allowed to have the actual procedure, so they can be sent home to think about it some more.

THIS!Prolifeatheist- you need to answer Salty’s concerns, my concerns, and a few others before you have even a chance of being taken seriously. 

Why should your love of unborn fetuses, or personal theories of existence or life, trump basic bodily autonomy for women, the kind that men have had for all of history?  We are in no danger of dying out, but quite the opposite…the state simply has no pressing reason to force women to give birth… except to enforce right-wing & religious social policies.  Keeping women in slavery to reproduction and limiting their options in life, keeping the population high, keeping labor cheap and poor people over-reproducing, keeping a large underclass of people with few resources and little chance for advancement or education…THOSE are the social results of  anti-choice policies. 

If the government has any interest in insuring the security and the future of our country and the human race, then pro-choice policies will follow from that, not anti-choice.  We need to reduce population growth. We need better society-wide education.  We need less people on the edge of poverty and starvation.
And if we are to take seriously the issues of freedom and autonomy  for women, that interest only points even more closely to a pro-choice policy.

You ask us to take you at your word, yet you can provide no reasons except your muddled, unexplained personal feelings to restrict the most personal choices a woman can make, and you ally yourself with positions that help reinforce religious and authoritarian rule over individuals. 

Time to give your “feelings” a good self-examination and ask yourself what makes you, or your feelings for any random fetus, so damn special.   

I know it sounds extreme to many, but your concerns are not that far-fetched.  Plenty of over-reaching authoritarians have been killed over less important issues, and in many cases it was a necessary change for the better. 

There are people in this country, right now, who openly and constantly fantasize about a bloody second revolution and the mass killing or purge of liberals, feminists, and  non-christians.  And all they are asked to put up with is other people having freedom, and paying some tax to provide education and prevent mass homelessness and hunger.  Being expected to participate in civilization without being able to have absolute rule has provento be  too much to expect from certain right-wingers and religious tyrants.

Women, n the other hand, are being asked to kindly put up with state and religous control of their bodies and reproduction, and true second-class citizenship, just to appease a minority that has attained power way beyond their numbers or direct interests.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…if we all woke up tomorrow with the roles reversed, and it was men who were being asked to submit to such control, either the issue would be dropped immediately, or a bloody and merciless revolution would  be the result.  For the reord, I have zero problem with women being as militant as they need to be to claim their independence.        

The killing of baby girls is reported to occur in India, and less often in China. I’ve never heard of a case in the West, however. Outside of “ordinary” child abuse, the killing of babies is not at all common in the U.S. or Canada.

I don’t know of anybody who supports killing babies, or who wouldn’t be alarmed by any such cases.

But you don’t need to agree with her reasons. The point is, they are her reasons, and while anybody can disagree with her, nobody should have the right to interfere.

Of all the places I can think of where freedom of speech ought to be sacrosanct, the floor of a legislature seems the most necessary. Our democracy is being killed before our eyes.

This is an English language forum. You are using some unidentified foreign word “baby”, which means something different than any English dictionary will show. That makes dialog impossible.

It doesn’t matter if you think that “baby” is an acceptable word for an unborn person. I might think “idiot” is an acceptable term for a lawyer, but that doesn’t make the two synonymous, and I therefore wouldn’t use the incorrect word if I wanted to be understood. You can’t just invent a new meaning for a word and expect to be understood.

The proposed bill has a medical clause – which includes exemptions for rape, incest, and the health of the mother. 

You didn’t actually read the proposed bill, did you?

Uh, what? First of all, they’re now saying *specifically* that the word “vagina” had nothing to do with it, just “no means no.” Which means that your analogy doesn’t hold, if you believe them.

That said, my grandmother uses the word “vagina.” We’ve talked about vaginas, penises, uteri, vulva, foreskin, anal sex, impotence, prostate cancer, Viagra, and myriad other things that make the whole “say that to your grandmother” thing just ridiculous. If my grandmother ever tried to tell me what to do with my reproductive rights, I’d absolutely tell her “stay out of my vagina, no means no.”  And she wouldn’t be shocked, offended, or think it was dirty because…you know… VAGINA!!! Oh noze, not a medically correct term! Gasp!  Then again, she never would try to restrict my reproductive rights, because she respects my intelligence and my agency.  Just because you can’t have open discourse with people doesn’t mean others can’t.

And, again, if you can switch out “vagina” for any other medical term and have it not be offensive, then the problem wasn’t what she was saying, it was the fact that she was talking about vaginas that was the problem.

If we required people with deviant septums to have them fixed: “I am glad you are so interested in my septum, but no means no. ” If the debate was about organ donation: “I am glad you are so interested in my kidney, but no means no.”  If the speaker had been discussing a mandate to keep nails trimmed: “I am glad you are so interested in my phalanges, but no means no.” 

So yeah, context matters. 

 “They contend that pro-lifers are all about restricting woman’s rights,”

Maybe they don’t talk to themselves with this intention, but their actions ARE all about restricting women rights.

It is undeniable, at least for me. In order to protect this life, you must reduce women rights. And we are talking about the right to decide what goes in your body and what does not. So, like it or not, regardless of how good your intention is in protecting life, you would have to prove that this life is really worth this protection. Because it is a rather extreme measure to force women to stay pregnant.

Watch the video.  It’s pretty clear.  

No, it’s really not. As political rhetoric goes, this is really mild. 

I watched the video. I want you to explain it in your own words. 

This had little to do with the word and almost everything to do with the language. 
She may have used a “proper medical term”, but she used it in an improper, sexual and personal context. A judge would’ve had her arrested for contempt of court.
Don’t be flattered, Lisa. I’m not interested, either. 

Its like you gets the arguments(mostly), but still think that others owe  you an explanation for their choices.
 
So we both agree that sex-selective abortion is not a problem in this country…but history has shown that any restriction on abortion in  this country  does, in fact, keep the “debate” alive,  opening doors for anti-choicers to push for more and more restrictions and keeping reproductive freedom from becoming the accepted norm …or have you been comatose since 1973?
Why comment about problems that have no relevance to this country, while ignoring the obvious problem that red herrings like that only add to the long list of issues that will be raised dishonestly, only serving to further demonize women and derail acceptance of reproductive freedom?   
As far as I can tell, you only do it because you really do think that women owe you and the state some kind of justification for their most personal choices, even though there is no real chance of the government having a clear reason to interfere that will protect society from some unidentified greivous  harm.

Great!  I’ll show up with signs reading “labia”, “clitoris”, “mons pubis”, “pudenda”, “perineum”, and “introitus” – with a “glans”, “foreskin”, and “scrotum” thrown in for good measure!

Right.  She could have said, “coochie” or “cooter” or “snatch”, or worse.  “Pussy” comes to mind…but I bet the stupid Retardlicans would have loved that.  After all, that’s the terminology they use when they get together to fart and smash beer cans on their foreheads.

What sexual context? The word vagina isn’t sexual, it’s technical. I have a vagina, and it’s with me all the time, even *gasp* when I’m not having sex. “Vagina” is no more a sexual term than rectum or mouth. Those orifices can, indeed, be used for sexual purposes, but that doesn’t make the words themselves sexual.   There was no sexual connotation to her statement. Though, frankly, given the debate is about reproductive rights, there’s no reason that should matter because sex is, in fact, involved. And, incidentally, not a “dirty” or “improper” topic regardless.

This isn’t a trial, so what a judge would or would not do is irrelevant, and a strawman argument. 

As to context, there’s just under 200 comments addressing why you’re just wrong (including the Repubs current line saying it wasn’t the word “vagina,” after all, that was the problem), so I’ll save the space by not repeating them all.

What part about “criminal assault on the pregnant woman” did you not understand means rape and/or incest? 

I didn’t realize that I was talking to sub-High School level readers.  I apologize for assuming you could read. 

Okay, REREAD that section. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.

“remove a dead fetus THAT HAS DIED AS A RESULT
17 OF NATURAL CAUSES, ACCIDENTAL TRAUMA, OR A CRIMINAL ASSAULT ON
18 THE PREGNANT WOMAN. ”

The key words here are that a fetus *died as a result of* natural causes, or a criminal assault on the pregnant woman. NOT a fetus that was *caused by* a criminal assault on a woman, making her pregnant. You do see the difference, right? “Died as a result of accidental trauma or criminal assault” would mean, for example, if a woman was in a car accident or mugged violently and the baby died as a result of resulting injuries from the mugging. 

And, still, nothing on fetal anomalies.

 I don’t think you’re smart enough to be a neuroscientist. Those legislators are directly interested in Ms. Brown’s vagina and making laws about what she can do with it. Is she not allowed her religious freedom to get an abortion as needs be for her beliefs? Oh, of course not, because it’s the same god, and you know what he wants. Please put your dick back in your pants, big shot. You are just a troll.

Non sequitur, dummy.

I think you mean uterus.  Nobody cares about her nasty vajayjay (in the parlance of Oprah). 

And yeah, sometimes I don’t think I’m smart enough for my profession because I just don’t understand people who think a fetus is just a bunch of cells right up until week 39 of gestation – and then POOF it magically becomes a baby. 

Like I’ve stated before, I’m not opposed to all abortions.  But abortion after 20 weeks is one of the worst things I have ever personally seen.  I wish I could erase it from my memory.  You’re probably lucky you didn’t have to witness a moving fetus being having it’s limbs ripped off.  I did and I’m happy that I’ll never be in an OR during an abortion procedure ever again in my life. 

VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!
VAGINA! VAGINA! 
VAGINA! VAGINA! 
VAGINA! VAGINA!  VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! 
VAGINA! VAGINA!  VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! 
VAGINA! VAGINA!  VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA!  VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! 
VAGINA! VAGINA!  VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! 
VAGINA! VAGINA!  VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! 
VAGINA! VAGINA!  VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! VAGINA! 

RedSchwartz has a FUNNY song about this on YouTube, just search on YouTube for “Vagina Jase Bolger – Eric Schwartz”.

My favorite lyrics in the song is the line that says: “Regulate it, Legislate it, Go on and invade it…. just don’t SAY it….”

when I was pregnant, my doctor actually DID ask me just that. She also had my husband step out of the room before she asked me that, and asked if I felt safe in my current situation. There are good OB doctors out there that support women’s reproductive rights. I don’t think she’d have been thrilled if I’d said I didn’t want the child as I got the feeling she was Christian (no direct evidence, just gut feeling) but, not once did i, a staunch anti-religion supporter, ever feel uncomfortable with her.

Exactly. Neither “vagina” or “no means no” is offense, and the whole “context” argument here is just a smokescreen.

Right. It’s me, the one who could correctly read the bill and point out to you your error in comprehension, who is illiterate here. 

Newsflash: ad hominem attacks don’t mean you’re right. They don’t mean you’re smart. They just mean you can’t come up with anything relevant.

The biggest farce in the abortion debate?  Even by Planned Parenthood stats, the abortions due to ‘the life of the mother’ or the ‘health of the baby’ or the ‘rape of the mother’ are relatively few.  Other stats have them as far fewer than PP, but even PP admits that most abortions are for nothing other than, for the want of a better word, convenience.  The only procedure covered without need for medical necessity, for most cases abortions are simply a last line birth control.   If only the pro abortion side would admit that, it would be honest.  As it is, they hide behind the difficult cases that demand sensitivity, all the while keeping the floodgates open for an ethic that says nothing other than ‘we’d abort six million babies for better orgasms.’  Heinous.  Simply heinous.  All the contempt for human life that Nazis had, but for hedonistic narcissism rather than nationalism.  And her being Jewish on top of it.

Mr. Dickhead never met a woman who really meant no.

If we’re going to pick new acceptable words for genitalia (can I still say that?), I’m going to lobby for “bearded clam” and “beef bus”.

Great to see our resident troll is back. So two days after you posted something that was shown to be factually incorrect (which you ignored) you then pop back up to prove that it takes you only two post to fulfill Goodwins Law. Bravo!

So what do we know about DG from these two post. Well he will use the force of law to require you to practice his religion while claiming it’s you who are doing it, all while invoking the nazis justify it. What an awesome bastion of intellectualism and freedom you are.

Oh yea, no “babies” are ever aborted. “Babies” are something that gets born… either  learn what words mean or stop being a drama queen.

That’s Godwins Law.  And second, there is nothing wrong with comparing things when the comparison is valid.  I completely enjoyed your deft changing of the subject to me, rather than dealing with the meat of my argument: that the emphasis on ‘life of the mother’ is out of proportion to why abortions typically happen.   Oh, and since you get to define human life based on your preferences, your right to condemn the Nazis for doing the same comes from where?

So you’re saying that they actually can vote according to their religious beliefs, as long as they say they’re not doing so?  You see the point?

S E C U L A R   A R G U M E N T S

It is irrelevant if it happens to align with religious belief or not.  That’s not the point.  The point is that an argument from the Bible is no better than an argument from the Qu’ran or Gita or Harry Potter.  I don’t fucking care what you think your god said.  Somebody else thinks the same fucking god said something else.

This isn’t a fucking theocracy!  We’re not Saudi Arabia!  We don’t make laws based on fairy tales!  (Well, sometimes we do, but that’s the problem).

It’s times like this that I’m grateful for being a cultural Luddite.

Vaginas Take Back the Capitol

https://www.facebook.com/events/268583796582574

Good to see that there will be at least one public demonstration against this silly law.  And I love that Republicans feel that silencing their opposition is okay. 

What judge would’ve had her arrested?  For what exactly?  For speaking out in favor of women’s constitutional rights to abortion?  I’m sure that you as a Rightwinger would have all people arrested who don’t share your religious views.  Mrs. Brown correctly pointed out that as a Jew, she did not share the religious views of the anti-choice activists in the Michigan assembly.

The law makes no exception for banning abortions even for rape or incest after the fetus reaches 20 weeks, except for the health of the mother.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/06/13/498186/michigan-anti-abortion-bill-passes-house/

So Republicans are okay with forcing a rape/incest victim to give birth to the child of her rapist?  But there is no war on women, remember?

Wow, your a thick one aren’t ya?! She said ” have not asked you to adopt and adhere to my religious beliefs”, which she does not ask for legislation to do. As she says, her religion says you need to keep separate sets of dishes, yet she has asked for no law to require YOU to keep two sets of dishes.  Now the antiabortionist has a religion that says abortion is wrong, yet pass laws saying SHE has to follow that religious belief. Do you get it now, or are you that thick.?

Why the fuck would anyone who was raped wait 5 months to have an abortion?

 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html

1. A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that
excepts from criminality only a lifesaving procedure on behalf of the
mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without recognition of the
other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.

Pretty easy to research, fake neuroscientist.

Is that case law or is that in the Constitution?  There is zero mention of abortion as a right in the Constitution or the amendments. 

The reasoning of Roe v. Wade is an embarrassment to those who take
constitutional law seriously, even to many scholars who heartily support
the outcome of the case. As John Hart Ely, former dean of Stanford Law
School and a supporter of abortion rights, has written, Roe “is not
constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to
be.”

The court’s reasoning proceeded in two steps. First, it
found that a “right of privacy” exists under the Constitution, and that
this right is “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or
not to terminate her pregnancy.” Since this meant that the right to
abortion is constitutionally protected, a state could interfere with the
right only if it has a “compelling state interest” for doing so.

But
the right of privacy is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. Various
judges, according to the court, had found “at least the roots of that
right” in the First Amendment, in the “penumbras of the Bill of Rights,”
in the Ninth Amendment or in the “concept of liberty guaranteed by the
first section of the Fourteenth Amendment.” This vague statement is
tantamount to confessing the court did not much care where in the
Constitution this supposed right might be found. All that mattered was
it be “broad enough” to encompass abortion.

Even assuming a
right of privacy can be excavated from somewhere, anywhere, in the
Constitution, what does it mean? The court avoided defining the term,
except by giving examples from previous cases. The trouble is,
counterexamples abound. The federal “right of privacy” has never been
held to protect against laws banning drug use, assisted suicide or even
consensual sodomy–just to mention a few examples of crimes that are no
less “private” than abortion. It is impossible to know what does and
does not fall within this nebulous category.

Even assuming that
there is a right of privacy, and that its contours can be discerned from
the court’s examples, surely it must be confined to activities that
affect no one else. It would be an odd kind of privacy that confers the
power to inflict injury on nonconsenting third parties. Yet the entire
rationale for antiabortion laws is that an abortion does inflict injury
on a nonconsenting third party, the fetus. It is not possible to
describe abortion as a “privacy right” without first concluding that the
fetus does not count as a third party with protectable interests.

That
brings us to step two in the court’s argument. Far from resolving the
thorny question of when a fetus is another person deserving of
protection–surely the crux of the privacy right, if it exists–the
justices determined that the issue is unresolvable. They noted that
there has been a “wide divergence of thinking” regarding the “most
sensitive and difficult question” of “when life begins.” They stated
that “[w]hen those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine,
philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the
judiciary . . . is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.”

According
to the court, the existence of this uncertainty meant that the state’s
asserted interest in protecting unborn life could not be deemed
“compelling.” But this leaves us with an entirely circular argument. The
supposed lack of consensus about when life begins is important because
when state interests are uncertain they cannot be “compelling”; and a
compelling state interest is required before the state can limit a
constitutional right. But the constitutional right in question
(“privacy”) only exists if the activity in question does not abridge the
rights of a nonconsenting third party–the very question the court says
cannot be resolved. If it cannot be resolved, there is no way to
determine whether abortion is a “right of privacy.”

In any
event, the court’s claim that it was not resolving the issue of “when
life begins” was disingenuous. In our system, all people are entitled to
protection from killing and other forms of private violence. The court
can deny such protection to fetuses only if it presupposes they are not
persons.

One can make a pretty convincing argument, however,
that fetuses are persons. They are alive; their species is Homo sapiens.
They are not simply an appendage of the mother; they have a separate
and unique chromosomal structure. Surely, before beings with all the
biological characteristics of humans are stripped of their rights as
“persons” under the law, we are entitled to an explanation of why they
fall short. For the court to say it cannot “resolve the difficult
question of when life begins” is not an

-Mike MCConnell, WSLexplanation. 

Can you seriously not think of a situation of rape or incest where the victim may wait 5 months? No? 

Then that just shows you are incredibly out of touch with the reality of rape and incest, both of which aren’t crimes of sex, but crimes of power and oppression. 

McConnell even praised a judge who refused to enforce the law against antiabortion
protesters. McConnell has also expressed doubts about constitutional doctrines
requiring the separation of church and state.

http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/assets/files/courts-noms-mcconnell_quotes.pdf

Just all of it:
http://www.pfaw.org/media-center/publications/the-real-record-of-michael-mcconnell

Basically, fake neuroscientist full-quoted a whiner who has no idea how the Constitution should be interpreted, a willful liar who will ignore the Constitution to infringe on people’s rights in favor of his religious belief. “Those who take constitutional law seriously” is a group that does not include Mr. McConnell, so it’s a mystery why he thinks he speaks for them.

Introitus? Isn’t that the name of a part of the Catholic Mass?