John, your comment, “I actually don’t think they value the unborn so much as they want to control women’s bodies. ” is very much on the money. Women and babies seem to have more value as a martyrs who risk death in childbirth.

Given the opposition to sex ed, it feels very much like an effort to control women. Education = empowerment.

Where are the protests of men who impregnate women?

Why are humans so hell bent on women’s “purity” and not men’s? This has gone on for many millenia and has infiltrated our cultures, shaped religions, and I don’t understand it. Because of the prevalence of misogyny for well, forever it seems, I have to believe there’s something psychological at work. But it doesn’t help me excuse or understand it.

Fwiw, all those men are wimps or pigs commercials were the most bothersome to me. Why is there no controversy there?

oh… and here’s a pretty good rundown of all the sexism, racism, and homophobia in yesterday’s super bowl commercials: http://bit.ly/asgQkd

I mean, everybody knows that Americans lives are better and more important than Iraqi or Afghani lives. American are exceptional!

One more inconsistency just crossed my mind: the people I know who are the most willing to extend legal protections to fetuses are also the most ardent supporters of US military excursions abroad. I might believe they were “pro-life” if they valued, say, an Iraqi life half as much as they did a blastocyst.

Grrrrrr…

I understand the desire to preserve life, I really, really do, and I think a lot of those who oppose abortion do so out of that reason, and I think that many haven’t dissected the issue as it needs to be, and haven’t really thought about it more than the sensationalised “KILLING BABIES OMG!”

Even if I allow that a foetus is as important as a human who has already been born (and I don’t believe that), the protestation that those who oppose abortion are “pro-life” falls flat on its face as soon as one investigates the other views that tend to go along with that. Our system for dealing with unwanted and undernurtured children is broken as it is, if abortions were to stop, the number of children who would need to be adopted, who would need serious medical attention, who would be put in the foster-care system, etc. would increase dramatically, and rarely are those who oppose the legality of abortion those who also support increasing social programme funding, or increasing the pool of possible adoptive and foster parents (singles, gays).

What is especially sad to me is that a woman is no less misogynist for opposing the right to abortion just because she’s a woman. It is tragic when you can convince those who are discriminated against to perpetuate and defend their own discrimination.

I had not thought of it that way… interesting, thanks. I think I agree. It seems that many really don’t care so much about “life” per se, but about their version of “morality.”

Here are just a couple of examples, but they don’t:
- pour their resources into preventing the billions of fetal deaths through spontaneous miscarriage. (way more than are lost to abortion)
- encourage comprehensive sex education with the realization that they would be saving untold lives of the unborn . etc., etc.

In my view, the right of a woman to choose to not have an abortion owes exactly as much to having a free, secular society as the right to choose to have an abortion. That is, if the right to have an abortion can be taken away, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that the right to not have an abortion is also threatened.