Our loss is also a loss for the City of Wichita and women across America. George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality heath care despite frequent threats and violence. We ask that he be remembered as a good husband, father and grandfather and a dedicated servant on behalf of the rights of women everywhere.
Statement from Dr. George Tiller’s family.
I hesitated to post this, because I don’t want it to look like we’re using it to score a political point. But while I am incredibly sad for Dr. Tiller and his family and friends, I am also angry at an act of terrorism aimed at preventing women from exercising their legal rights by making people too frightened to continue working with family planning organisations. It’s good that “mainstream” anti-abortion groups have condemned the killing, but what does it say about them that they knew they had to? What do we really think will happen when law-abiding doctors are called nazis and mass-murderers whom the legal system can’t or won’t stop?
The letter arrived on a Tuesday in march. “Dear Sara,” it read. “It is our information that you are currently an employee of Women’s Health Care Services, a facility that provides abortions.” It went on to suggest that Sara Phares, an administrative assistant at the clinic in Wichita, Kansas, quit her job and repent her sins. “Please know that we are praying for you,” the letter concluded. It was signed “Troy Newman, President, Operation Rescue West.” A week later, hundreds of Phares’ neighbors received an anonymous postcard of a mangled fetus. This is abortion! read the big block letters. “Your neighbor Sara Phares participates in killing babies like these.” The postcard implored them to call Phares, whose phone number and address were provided, and voice their opposition to her work at the clinic. Another card soon followed. It referred to Phares as “Miss I Help to Kill Little Babies” and suggested, in an erratic typeface that recalled a kidnapper’s ransom note, that neighbors “beg her to quit, pretty please.” The third postcard dispensed entirely with pleasantries: “Sara Phares is not to be trusted! Tell her to get a life!”
The National Director of Priests for Life makes the “abortion industry” sound like the mafia; the fact that women flew to Dr Tiller’s practice from all across the US apparently does nothing to prevent them from spinning the line that abortionists are “killers for hire”. If it is such a lucrative career then why aren’t there thousands of Dr. Tillers across the free market-loving United States?
No, most anti-abortionists aren’t murderers, and I have no doubt that most are also horrified about Dr. Tiller’s murder. But as Jill Filopovic points out:
Since 1977, there have been at least 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery and three kidnappings (pdf) committed against abortion providers in North America. Tiller himself survived an assassination attempt in 1993.
Promoting fear and hatred is not pro-life.
Update: More proof that terrorism works?
I do hope that they have the death Penalty and that whoever is responsible is caught, convicted and executed.
An act of terrorism no doubt. I agree with Razor – same goes for today’s shootings in Arkansas.
And his children unto the fourth generation, eh Razor? It would be a shame to miss an opportunity to kill as many people as possible.
A suspect has been caught. He uses very similar language about Tiller as did Bill O’Reilly from Fox “News”. The bloke who shot up the Unitarian Church last year had a house full of books by O’Reilly, Hannity etc. The way the current suspect’s ex-wife describes his descent is very illuminating (teabagging is a gateway drug for these people), but I dare say Rupert thinks himself immortal and even at his advanced age won’t feel motivated to reign in his demagogues.
Any chance we can refrain from making this another culture war Fox News thread? As fun as they are usually. Kthx.
…
I’m with Craig Mc, and, though I disagree about capital punishment, Razor. Terrorists ought to fear and expect the weight of the law, and their causes ought to be discredited as a result of their acts.
Tragic, disgusting, horrible.
First person testimony from someone who new the doctor.
A courageous and compassionate man.
Nope, disagree entirely Liam. We should not be too polite to impugn the people who incite this behaviour. They continue doing so knowingly, in light of numerous previous events, they are unrepentant, and they are motivated by financial gain. The only “culture” it’s got anything to do with is the culture of anything for a buck. We certainly don’t hesitate to blame Muslim leaders who verbally incite hatred. I’m sure we’ll be hearing about the Arkansas bloke’s influences.
I’m frankly also sick of everyone bringing up “terrorism” whenever they can because it’s the trendy malfeasance, in much the same way everyone likes to chuck in a pedophilia analogy to make a point. It’s a murder or an assassination.
As I say this sort of thing has happened numerous times. Now is exactly the time to make a fuss about the rhetoric that inspires the action. Or it’ll just go on until it gets … out of hand?
I’ve called it assassination since I heard about it, but I disagree with you Sean. Assassinations are terrorism. They have a clear political goal: the intimidation of others who share/support the assassinated person’s aims/ideals/culture.
You say potato, I say POTD, let’s call the whole thing off.
In clarification of the point above, I can’t say it better than Orcinus’ Sara Robinson in her post about the assassination:
I find this act at first makes me very angry. But reading/thinking more, I think criticism of anti-abortion rhetoric needs to be tempered somewhat.
The suspected killer sounds like he had serious mental health / personality issues, and a bit of history with the police, he could have been better tracked/dealt with perhaps.
Its a really difficult question, but I think mental illness plays a much bigger role in this incident than anti-abortion rhetoric. Raised in a different environment, this man may have been killing for the environment (unabomber *cough*) or killing for some other issue.
I’d love it if anti-abortion groups toned down the hate/emotion in their rhetoric, but that applies to just about any polarised public issue, and to both sides of that issue. There is a WWII Germany analogy made ever other minute in the blogosphere to characterise either side of the climate change debate, and same for debate on the war on terror, for example. Hateful rhetoric and activities should be condemned no matter what the issue.
PS. I dont mean to excuse the hate-inciting actions of some anti-abortion groups and personalities, they are inexcusable. And the prevalence of death threats etc in this particular debate compared to other debates suggests that in this debate the rhetoric is definitely going too far. I’m just taking a look in the mirror is all.
I’ll eschew a semantic argument on “terrorism” other than to say that this camel’s back was broken when Scipione et al used the word about the fatal bikie biffo at the airport.
My main point remains that those who have benefited in such an enormous material way from the United States, including and especially Mr Murdoch, should start showing some restraint, some sense of public duty, some dare I say it noblesse oblige. The ranters seem borderline mad and are unlikely to bring themselves to heal, so it falls to their employers.
I’m frankly also sick of everyone bringing up “terrorism” whenever they can because it’s the trendy malfeasance, in much the same way everyone likes to chuck in a pedophilia analogy to make a point. It’s a murder or an assassination.
Why? Read some of the essays Dave Neiwert (“Orcinus”) writes on the US rightwing movements. Read what Anna wrote above. Do you think Terrorism has to be a purely bloke thing, or something perpetrated by brown people? Family planning clinics in some parts of the States look like bunkers and as Anna pointed out, there are constant murders, bombings and death threats, all aimed specifically at getting a particular activity to stop. Domestic terrorism may look a bit different than international, but to me, it certainly looks like terrorism.
Definitions of terrorism on the Web:
the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or …
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion.” There is no internationally agreed definition of terrorism. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism
The word “terrorism” is politically and emotionally charged,Hoffman, Bruce “Inside Terrorism” Columbia University Press 1998 ISBN 0-231-11468-0. Page 32. See review in The New York Times and this greatly compounds the difficulty of providing a precise definition. …
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_(definitions_of)
terror – panic: an overwhelming feeling of fear and anxiety
terror – a person who inspires fear or dread; “he was the terror of the neighborhood”
terror – a very troublesome child
terror – the use of extreme fear in order to coerce people (especially for political reasons); “he used terror to make them confess”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
terrorist – a radical who employs terror as a political weapon; usually organizes with other terrorists in small cells; often uses religion as a cover for …
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Sean, Liam was suggesting that this not become a stupid, low-brow point-scoring exercise, and I’m with him in expecting the same from anyone who comments on this thread. It has nothing to do with “impugning” anyone; it’s about intelligent, nuanced debate. I don’t wish to talk about teabagging, for instance.
A good man died, and women’s lives and health will be put at risk as even more people are scared away from doing necessary work. If you can’t add anything substantive to a discussion about how to solve it, then stay silent and listen to those who do.
…And my favourite universal definition of terror (which I’ll leave for the reader to Google for authorship):
I think Sean has made a substantive point, very eloquently put and one on which I concur. Better that a shot across the bow be made with regard to how this kind of tragedy gets used by the US media, than none made at all. I don’t imagine he is trying to skew the thread into some Rupert-hating fest. Seems there’s quite enough hate out there already.
And regarding the word terrorist, its as though the words murderer or assailant are not enough, what such people do is not enough to rouse us into . . . (whatever it is we are supposed to be roused into). I think everybody is a little weary of the word terrorist being used to describe what usually turns out to be quite a range of people.
I think lunatic is probably a reasonable descriptor for the assailant in this case.
Anyway I’m just making a point to support what I thought were perfectly reasonable comments from Sean. I cannot think of anything more tiresome at this late stage of the War on Terror than getting into a semantic debate or seeing clearly intelligent people being lectured to on the definition ‘terror’. I think we’ve pretty much all grasped by now what a terrorist and terrorism is. I’ve picked my word for this subjecty-lunacy.
Can this debate not be about individual commenters please? No-one has said anyone else is not being reasonable so far, but lets stick to the points made rather than who is making them.
I could live without both the tone and the injunction to silence thankyou Anna. What are you trying to imply with that seocnd paragraph? That I approve? You’ll note that I desisted from getting too far off track with competing definitions of terrorism (commet 12, 1st para). I won’t even rise to Helen’s subsequent “bloke thing” bait. Of course that’s also because I don’t really understand her point. Liam responded for himself quite ably with the RUSI document, and we’d effectively shutdown that side argument before you and Helen arrived.
“Teabagging” was short hand, but if you read the linked article you’ll see that the suspect was first influenced by anti-tax rhetoric before moving on to this other node in the right wing talking head business model, anti-abortion. The recent “teabag” protests were anti-tax protests, promoted by some of the same people/corporations who promoted the late Dr Tiller as a target and called him a Nazi. The linkage is therefore real and also meaningful.
As to substantive suggestions, I’m the only one who’s made any. It is common knowledge that people imbue broadcast media with authority. Aural and visual clues are used to reinforce this (portentious symphonic music; offical seeming, national flag be-decked sets). I refer again, therefore to the second para of my comment 12.
Anyone got anything to say about my actual substantive point?
Liam,
Just asking, but why did you post that in French?
Pretentious? Moi?
Why, to intimidate and silence, Phillip.
Your gripe could be with Robespierre, Phillip.
No sense of audience, that guy.
Treading extremely carefully…
The point that those who incite and continue to incite such murderous action as this should be held to account, is a valid point. Without this context this murder becomes a random act of a nutter, when even if this guy was a nutter, without any contextual framework.
If we call this act terrorism, that merely substantiates Sean’s point. We have major news organisations in the US inciting a terrorist act. Surely that is worthy of debate, and indeed it could be argued is a major issue to be drawn from this tragedy.
Not treading carefully enough…
Please delete ‘when even if this guy was a nutter’. Then it might sort of make sense.
Anna I was not making a comment on an individual, I was making a comment on his comment i.e, how the right-wing media in the States reports on this issue, which I happen to think is good point and one inextricably tied up with how this type of lunacy is promoted/portrayed. Its obviously not the only issue, but it is salient.
The most ridiculous thing about pro-lifers in the States is how so many of them promulgate homocide and violence as the cure. If it wasn’t so bloody tragic, it would make wonderful material for satire–which I’m sure it does already . . .somewhere.
Indeed, Caroline.
I’m with you, @adrian #23 – labelling this act of intimidatory violence as a terrorist act makes the connection drawn by Sean to the rhetoric of broadcast incitement stronger. When people repeatedly refer to doctors who provide abortions as babykilling monsters wading in the blood of innocents, they can’t then act surprised that people feel exhorted to take action.
@Caroline #17, why call the act of a man who had staked out the church for weeks and had a getaway car waiting “lunacy”? It was obviously a meticulously premeditated act (and it has been noticed that it took place on the 6th anniversary of the arrest of abortion terrorist Eric Rudolph, which ties into the hypothesis of incitement via anti-legal-abortion movement rhetoric). The fact that his thinking must have been repugnant to the extreme does not by definition make the assassin insane, and to use the term “lunacy” appears to be a partial absolution of the “he was so outraged by Tiller’s actions that he couldn’t help himself” variety. When we Other these violent thugs by calling them “lunatics” we make it too easy for the movements that nurtured and incited their violence to paint them as rogue agents for whom they bear no moral responsibility.
Sean, no-one is accusing you, or anyone else on this thread, of anything distasteful. Some of us just know how these threads can go from experience and were making general points reminding people of that in advance. Your comments, and everyone else’s are being addressed on their merits so far and I ask only that that continues. No more meta now, please.
It’s worth reading the whole article from Rolling Stone that I linked to in the post, and note that it was written in 2004. That’s 5 years ago. Dr Tiller was first shot in 1993! It’s hard not to see this as terrorism.
This is also worth a read, to hear some reactions from his former patients.
No question that by any definitions this act is a kind terrorism, it is/was a political and religious act, a war on secular society and yes there was incitement from a lot of people who should know better but such is the nature of gutter journalism and warped ideologies. It isn’t a long walk from this to Taliban like violence.
Dr Tiller’s death was an act of terrorism that made the lives of poor American families facing unwanted children or deformed foetuses that much harder.
While we talk terrorism let’s not forget the openly anti-abortion stance of mercenary groups like Blackwater that were incorporated in Iraq to provide “security”. Notice that the anti-abortion piece on the ABC Unleashed site was written by a former SAS commander. see http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2578418.htm
Why do soldiers who have killed develop a conscience about terminating unwanted pregnancies that women can’t afford to raise properly? One of the unintended consequences of accessible abortion was the reduction in delinquency rates 15 years later
The US stories about anti-abortion protesters making patients run-the-gauntlet of prayers, graphic posters and push past bodies also occurs here, although their behaviour has been regulated since a security guard was shot dead outside an abortion clinic. The God-botherers who spend their time picketing abortion clinics should get a real job or find themselves another hobby.
Actually if US police had stood up to the anti-abortion picketers this situation couldn’t have developed this far. i.e. the anti-abortions have the tacit support of American authorities
Liam, there is no way this thread can discuss the murder of Tiller without for instance, bringing up the role of Bill O’Reilly (and Fox) who over many episodes, apparently 28 and counting, described Tiller in the sort of language Tigtog mentions above.
In respect of terrorism – the murder is being described as ‘domestic terrorism’ by many MSM commentators in the US. No big deal for them – they are, unfortunately, a bit more used to domestic terrorists over thar.
And 1 of now only 2 doctors performing mid & late term abortions in a country of 300m, hammers it all the way home as he sees it, as per link:
The really sad thing, is that this won’t slow them down in the medium term. Obama might throw more federal law enforcement at the problem, more visible protection etc. But there is now such a huge infrastructure built around the anti-abortion movement and it has such long and deep ties with just about all churches, with many mainstream politicians and the right-wing media etc., that one member doing what many, many more preach daily, it just doesn’t matter what the short-term blowback will be in respect of this one murderer and his group etc.
This is one of the most fundamentalist religious nations on the planet with a major national political party who have cast their lot with a significant percentage of the population who view abortion as a touchstone voting issue. Out of the their cold, dead fingers as they put it themselves.
They are out in the cold themselves for the next few years, and who knows, maybe they are ramping up their internal rhetoric in response to the new Adminstration… and of course we’ll see what happens in 2012, but I just see abortion rights in the US being fought over for another 10,000 days or longer.
The people who work in clinics over there are incredibly brave. I know I’d be way too concerned for my own personal safety.
Terrorism is an act of violence by an individual or non-state group against a non-combatant with the purpose of effecting political or social change. Killing abortion doctors is terrorism.
I agree the press has a lot to answer for. Charlie Brooker in the UK does well in mocking the mindless media, and has a bit here where he shows a forensic psychologist pointing out that if the media wanted to ensure that each mass killing were followed by another, they couldn’t do better than they currently do. I’m sure the same is true for terrorist acts.
Steven Weinberg noted physicist and atheist:
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/archive/design/weinberg_designer.html
The person who committed the crime obviously isn’t insane, but whether he’s a rational human being is open to question.
I’m constantly amazed at the so-called pro-life lobby, most of whom claim to be Christian. If they were truly concerned about children and babies, I would have thought they’d be more interested in the health and welfare of children already alive.
They seem remarkably unconcerned about children who are abused, neglected and otherwise maltreated. But of course that would mean actually coming into contact with real people and having to do something besides sloganeering and bullying women and staff at family planning clinics.
Billie @ 31
“Why do soldiers who have killed develop a conscience about terminating unwanted pregnancies that women can’t afford to raise properly?”
I think you will find that Jim Wallace has been a happy clapper christian for a long long time. He didn’t come to his position on abortion after “killing”. Your assertion is ridiculous.
I find it laughable that so many posters to this thread (and site)see anti-abortion as a right issue. I doubt many would call the Catholic Church a bastion of RWDBs.
I am proud to be identified as a RWDB and I support women having the right to choose abortion to terminate a pregnancy.
I find it funny that LPers think people shouldn’t be able to picket abortion clinics but have no problem at all with G20 protesters smashing up a police van.
Both groups are dangerous morons and more of them should be locked up IMO.
The really funny thing though is that the only protesters police get around to bashing these days are the Indian Students who are protesting about lazy police.
Good on you razor.
Yobbo, I personally don’t support people “smashing up a police van”, although the rest of the LP hivemind may I wouldn’t be surprised.
But aside from the whole smashing things up, I have no problem with people protesting in the streets about either abortion or globalisation. I do have a problem with people protesting outside clinics and would have similar problems with anyone intimidating and invading the privacy of individuals making difficult medical decisions.
“I find it funny that LPers think people shouldn’t be able to picket abortion clinics but have no problem at all with G20 protesters smashing up a police van.”
I find it hilarious if slightly tragic that you can’t see the difference between terrorising and intimidating individual women seeking medical attention and the partial destruction of an inanimate object, ie a van.
Speak for yourself Yobbo, I personally think that those sections of the anti-globalisation campaigners who commit violence do that campaign a huge disservice, whether or not I agree with the campaign btw., because the general public have absolutely no idea what is actually being discussed or agreed to at these G7, G10 etc meetings… because the media is entirely taken up with following the angry people smashing up stuff and attacking the cops etc.
If people want to protest abortion laws (or what is currently allowed by the law) -fine by me, but harassing staff and patients isn’t protesting the laws – it’s harassing people and in this case – murder.
And I should have said abortion laws Razor, not abortion rights. My first post was bit all over the shop, from just thinking about the huge amount of hate coming from a long line of stupid in respect of this act, and doubling up with the young woman being charged by the QLD coppers….sheesh.
And I meant ‘fundie religious country on planet’ ie. by the sheer amount of people in the US who ascribe to fundie religious beliefs ie. creationism, not so much the US state esp. compared to say Saudi Arabia for example. And of course there are big differences on where in the US blah, blah.
Sara Robinson – essential reading.
Anna @41? In the small fonts? What Jo said @43. Where on earth did that come from? Kind of gobsmacked, actually.
The person who committed the crime obviously isn’t insane, but whether he’s a rational human being is open to question.
thankyou Jane-(above)
Took a while to digest. But I take your point tigtog and now can understand that there are political reasons to label an anti-abortionist group who engage in such activities, ‘terrorists’. Because being a terrorist lately, is seen as very very bad, it is to be an ‘enemy combatant’ –extremely naughty. and OT any chance anyone of a post about China’s rebuttal of us possibly taking the uigurs?
I feel compassion for people who honestly believe that aborting a foetus is akin to murder, they weep and they wail, when its only a matter of understanding something simple to realise that it isn’t murder at all and they need not commit it in order to stop all the killing. Especially for them Christians one might wildly imagine. There is tragedy here but we’re not short on irony either.
Still, I’m ‘with’ myself and stand by my comment that the assailant as a member of a specific group was gripped by a commonly held lunacy. They’re all barking mad as far as I’m concerned. . . .
Helen reacted “Kind of gobsmacked, actually.”
Oh, I dunno Helen. Occasionally quite nasty (brutal?) comments are posted.
I recall one instance, where a poster seemed to express satisfaction about Fidel Castro’s actions [hosting Soviet missiles] that preceded the ‘Cuban Missile Crisis’ during which the globe came close to nuclear war. A small example, but apparently condoning extreme violence, I thought.
Then again, I’m not sure that the posited ‘hivemind’ exists.
I thought Yobbo’s comment was so ridiculous that I could forgo the winky face with my response, but clearly not. It was a joke, hivemind.
Exactly; one might listen more tolerantly to their spiel about the rights of the unborn if they showed any concern at all for the born. But I have never yet had a satisfactory response (or indeed any response) from any right-to-lifer to whom I’ve put this argument. They just start up again about bubby-murdering and evil nasty women and how Ceiling Cat thinks Ur Doin it Rong and so on.
In the wake of this assassination I’ve now seen another argument, highlighting their hypocrisy and their self-delusion about their own motives, that I also really like: that if the Church Militant is so all-fired het up about abortions then they should put their energies into reducing the need for them, and no that doesn’t mean holding up placards saying Just Say No and pledging their virginities to their Daddies *EW EWW EWWWWW*. Promotion of contraceptives would be far more effective and less revolting, and would reduce the wattage of the clear light shining on the fundie determination to make and keep women powerless at any cost. Which, as some of us know, is what this is really all about.
I wonder, though, Anna, if every time something like this murder — yes, this is murder — takes place it really does make people more scared to maintain their support for women’s rights over their own bodies, futures and lives. If I were a doctor I think it would only make me more determined to fight this God-bothering, power-crazed, self-unaware and misogynist criminality in the most effective way I could. As it is, every time something like this happens I find myself shifting to more extreme and adamant opposing positions — it’s just human nature. And I’m wondering how many other people, including logical, humanist doctors, it has that effect on.
“I find it laughable that so many posters to this thread (and site)see anti-abortion as a right issue.”
Golly some people have an odd sense of humour. Do you find the fact that most RWDB and their blogs see AGW as a left issue equally as hilarious? OT I know, but someone needs to take out the trash.
Thankfully, Dr Cat, I think there are many people who are like that, including Dr. Tiller. But while violence like this makes me more strident in my opinions, I really don’t think I’d be brave enough to actually put myself in the (literal) firing line:
Personally I’m appalled at the behaviour of anti-abortion protesters. They constantly proclaim a terrible genocide of the innocent is happening and yet when one lone martyr steps up to try and stop it, they get all coy and start vaguely condemning him while suddenly talking about about how it’s all relative.
C’mon it’s either a terrible slaughter that should be stopped by all means possible or it’s not. Where is the courage of your rhetoric?
What would Jesus do?
See Revelation 3:16
Also very handy for ship to ship messages when transferring sea sick supercargo.
The propagandising by O’Reilly which may or may not have contributed to this outrage is interesting, in that it was presupposed on selective outrage against what both the anti-choice Right and mildly pro-choice centrists in the US call partial birth abortion.
O’Reilly won’t come out and state that he opposes all choice, but he’s happy to grab the low hanging fruit and attack the provision of abortions in the third trimester (my understanding is that that was Dr Tiller’s area).
Perhaps the side-effect of all this is that the pro-lifers over there will lose the not insignificant support they have from mildly pro-choice people RE late term abortions?
We’ve been here before NickWs – Remember that during the Victorian decriminalisation debate the antis focused almost solely on late term abortion. I posted here (as I recall) with the opinion that it was the ick factor but some knowledgeable person posted that they know they’ve lost the battle re. early abortion so they focus pretty much exclusively on late – and lying about the idea that it happens on a whim, which it doesn’t.
Anna, got you Rong – sorry!
Sorry Anna – I’s fooled yet AGAIN
Helen, Anna, Ambi, Jo, could I just remind you that “Yobbo” has consistent form in parachuting into a thread, any thread, and diverting it with ever-so apropos and fascinating observations about the straw-LP, the LP hivemind, what LP thinks, what LP does, what LP had for breakfast, (or any other LOOK OVER THERE! topic), usually because he has nothing substantive to contribute to the actual topic of the post.
That kind of comment is disruptive, unproductive and, as you’ve seen once again, very likely to give rise to misunderstandings. Best not to get distracted in future by teh meta-stoush that Yobbo’s so keen to provoke.
As you were…
What I find hilarious is the alacrity with which Razor picks up a new RWDB meme and runs with it. Started by Hendo in the SMH yesterday. Victoria Police were mildly heavy handed with a protest by Indian students, after having been heavily criticised for not being heavy handed enough with the G20 protests, so there you go. Now to Razor: “Well a RWDB might have murdered a doctor, but 2 years ago Victoria Police didn’t sufficiently beat up people committing property crime. Therefore and QED, m’lud, I rest my case.”
For myself Razor, I am glad that the states of this country have AVO systems which would almost certainly protect the nurses from the behaviour outlined in the Rolling Stone story (at least in NSW & Victoria, where I practice), and also that we have not gone to the extent of Britain’s fascistic ASBOs.
It is a “right” issue insofar as the Republican party is the organised political wing of the right in the USA. Given the penchant of Howardistas to try Republican tricks here (eg the gay marriage stuff at the last election) we have been fortunate to avoid most of this in Australia. I suspect that market research showed the gay marriage gambit wasn’t discriminatory enough to really fire progressives against it, but made the poor benighted Christians feel loved. Whereas there just aren’t enough fundies here for the abortion schtick to go down.
…”…because the general public have absolutely no idea what is actually being discussed or agreed to at these G7, G10 etc meetings… because the media is entirely taken up with following the angry people smashing up stuff and attacking the cops etc.”
Because if there was no militant demo the MSM would be suddenly given over to thought-provoking analysis and in-depth discussions of the issues around the G20 that would include vocal opponents from the Left..!?
Chav,
Because if there was no militant demo the MSM would be suddenly given over to thought-provoking analysis and in-depth discussions of the issues around the G20 that would include vocal opponents from the Left..!?
Actually, yes Chav, nature abhors a vacuum and so do news and current affairs programs etc. Bastard Boys btw. has some nice dialogue about the PR disaster that is muscling up.
And below is the type of campaign that should have been front and centre of these debates amongst a number of other important on-going campaigns – instead of every bit of oxygen being sucked up by a bunch of global wannabe revolutionaries smashing up the centre of X city totally for their own amusement and self-glorification:
http://www.publishwhatyoupay.org/
“every bit of oxygen being sucked up by a bunch of global wannabe revolutionaries smashing up the centre of X city totally for their own amusement and self-glorification”
Nice capturing.
Helen @ 45 could you explain why you agree with Sara Robinson that, “Late-term abortions are a terrible business for everyone concerned.”?
Those who are pro-choice believe the fetus has no intrinsic worth and as such consider the killing of them an acceptable practice. Isn’t this the reason those who are pro-choice demand the removal of all legal restrictions on abortion – because all abortions are okay. So why are late-term abortions terrible? And why are they terrible but not first term abortions?
The SOW/REAP title is the most sensible part of this thread.
Colin – you seem not to have learned that sometimes people must choose between doing a terrible thing and allowing a worse one. You know – killing folk is bad, but killing the dude with explosives strapped to him before he gets to the primary school swimming carnival is probably okay.
Still, it is undoubtedly terrible for all concerned. See how morals are tricky? The right thing to do isn’t always the simplest, and it isn’t always very nice.
In the case of late-term abortions, we’re usually talking about someone who wanted their pregnancy to end with a successful birth and a healthy baby, not an unwanted pregnancy. She was looking forward to raising and nurturing a child, only to find that giving birth might kill her, or that the foetus will be severely malformed. You should probably be able to join the dots from there all on your lonesome, but if you still need help let me know.
Also, if you could use your imagination to try and conjure a scenario where what I’m saying DOES apply, rather than wasting everyone’s time with counterexamples which deliberately miss the point, I’m sure everyone would be grateful.
Colin, if you expect anyone to take your bait of the risible caricatured straw pro-choice position you’ve mapped out, you’re going to be disappointed here.
You have only contributed empty, baseless assertions about what “those who are pro-choice believe”. If your next post is more of the same, it won’t appear here for long. The purported beliefs of “those who are pro-choice” are not the topic of this thread. The *verified actions* of the pro-life movement, which includes the murder of a doctor, are very much the topic of this thread.
In case you hadn’t noticed, what’s under the microscope here is the beliefs of the extremist pro-life movement, who have deliberately orchestrated over many years a hateful campaign in the media and at abortion clinics, which targets for death numerous medical professionals, nurses and assistants who are all acting within the law. Do you have anything sensible to say about that situation?
Colin, I won’t speak for other pro-choice people, but in my own case, I dislike the idea of any termination, and I certainly don’t believe that a foetus has no intrinsic value. (They’re probably worth heaps, if you can find a market for the stem cells.) However, sometimes abortion, even late term abortion, is necessary. I won’t rehash the reasons, as I doubt if you would concede any of them.
I would take you, and other “pro-life” people, a little more seriously if you weren’t all also extremely hostile to decent sex education for young people and easy availability of contraceptives.
After all, it doesn’t matter how often you say, “Just say no!”, people are going to fuck and sometimes the female involved is going to get pregnant unless one or other of them takes precautions.
It’s not about abortion, it’s about a woman’s right to choose whether or not to get (or stay) pregnant. I note that most of you “pro-lifers” are quite happy to demonise single mothers, along with all your other moral failings.
Those terrible green protesters at in London, throwing themselves on the end of police batons, trying to eat riot shields and smash them with the back of their heads…simply dreadful.
David, Colin, FDB, dj. thanks for your contributions, but I’m blowing a moderator’s whistle.
The theoretical, purported or caricatured beliefs and attitudes of the pro-choice movement are not the topic of this thread.
The real-world actions of the pro-life movement, including the murder of a doctor, are very much the topic of this post.
Please keep it on topic, or take it elsewhere.
A useful read on strengthening the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=why_clinic_violence_is_obamas_problem
I share the opinion of many on this thread that very few abortions are sought with joy even in the case where the mothers life is at stake or has been impregnated through rape. Of the women I know who have had them, the decision was not taken lightly and even if it was probably the best choice, their was still regret, feelings of guilt etc. I can only imagine that the decision gets increasingly harder as the term of the pregnancy goes on.
I read the posts on Orcinus before I read this one, I haven’t read about what security measures Tiller was taking to possibly avoid this situation but I suspect he wouldn’t have had the resources to protect himself against someone with such a determined mindset who had been heavily cocooned from differing opinion and who had lost contact with people who cared for him who might have swayed him from this pather.
This article is probably a little bit rushed out but ‘interesting’ re: trying to follow the logic of these far-right-white-groups who are anti-abortion, seemingly around the idea that white women should just be breeders, and do what they are told.
Totally fcuked up:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/06/brief-history-radical-right
Abortion is wrong. Killing abortionists is wrong. Capital punishment is wrong. War is wrong. The problem is that the reality of abortion is not discussed in this issue. The actual act of dismembering the body during late term abortions, or the fact that the live baby is partially taken out before it is pierced with a tool. All is done to ensure the child never takes a breathe which would then make the act muder. It is only a couple of centimetres which is the difference. This is not being sensationalistic. Check out any factual website and it will tell how it is done. It is absolutley horrific. The other issue is that many on the left quitly oppose the culture of abortion but feel restricted in speaking out. I know of many anti war activists who oppose abortion. Many pro lifers are not right wing. The abortion lobby fear this as it will undermine their argument.
I’m leaving this comment here, but I won’t be allowing any further ones that don’t engage in the discussion and say something new. I think that’s fair.
Colin & Hmmmm, I recommend you read the article linked by Caroline at 29. Many medical procedures would be horrific if done for flippant reasons.
Feministe has a collection of links to prochoice organisations to which people can make donations in honour of Dr. Tiller.
If you prefer a more Australiacentric organisation, especially in view of the Queensland developments, Lauredhel has provided a few via Hoyden.
Marie Stopes International, Australia
Children by Choice Association
Reproductive Choice Australia
Thanks Lauredhel!
Thanks Helen. If only there were some way of mobilising medical students to following in Tiller’s footsteps! One more link from me, from Ezra Klein.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/how_should_congress_respond_to.html
In relation to the timing of legislative change, now is absolutely the time to effect change. I never knew him, but suspect, given all the threats and assassination attempts he faced, that Dr Tiller wouldn’t see legislative amendments in the wake of his death as inappropriate.
Rachel, there is already a student organisation in the US specifically devoted to reproductive rights activism and providing extensive training for residents and medical students in the expert skills required for safe abortion.
Oh really Jo, please feel free to point out to where such in-depth analysis that includes vocal opponents on the Left has saturated the MSM around a similar issue.
The one example of this happening that I recall is the media coverage around the S11 protests in Melbourne in 2000. Of course 80% of the MSM coverage was dedicated to stories about radicals indoctrinating schoolkids into a credo of ‘hate’ and ‘violence’ but there was one or two TV panel discussions around the issue that included opponents. Of course, they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere near the airplay they did if they hadn’t been backed up by a massive mobilisation composed of people who can see the difference between the violence neoliberal policies inflict around the world and the ‘violence’ of standing up to police assaults.
Sheesh, anyone would think you didn’t realise the media isn’t there to inform but is actually a business run for profit and whose owners are fully accordance with the views expressed by G20 delegates.
Chav, enough. This is not a thread about G20.
Sorry Anna, just a last word on the subject – Chav, the only achievement I can ascribe to the organising committee of the G20 demonstrations has been the reintroduction of heavy handed police tactics that were more typical prior to the 1980′s, tactics which many other campaigners had spent many years getting away from……….”What do we want? Police brutality, how do we get it..Now!
OTOH, the PWYP campaign I linked to above has in only ten years since it began (from a Global Witness report into petroleum royalties in Angola) managed to get a bill introduced to the Congress last year (the EITD Act ) and which will be re-introduced this year. A bill which will finally force all extractive industry companies listed on the securities exchange commission to disclose all payments made to foreign governments over USD 100K.
For developing countries whose GDP is just about entirely composed of revenue from extractive industries, this long hoped for transparency will for the first time provide the citizens of those countries, the actual figures paid by TNC’s to their Governments, and from this information, those citizens will have a powerful weapon with which to begin combating the systematic and massive corruption perpetrated by so many Govt officials in many desperately poor yet resource rich countries.
The EITD Act had bi-partisan support and now the support of the Obama Administration and it should be law hopefully by the end of 2009.
Next stop..China and India.
This makes for some informative and saddening reading.
“Sorry Anna, just a last word on the subject – Chav, the only achievement I can ascribe to the organising committee of the G20 demonstrations has been the reintroduction of heavy handed police tactics that were more typical prior to the 1980’s, tactics which many other campaigners had spent many years getting away from……….”What do we want? Police brutality, how do we get it..Now!”
Were these heavy-handed tactics from Richmond Secondary College (early 1990s) or from the World Economic Forum (2000) ?
FFS, Chav, Kennett’s reintroduction of very heavy handed police tactics were widely condemned at the time, the Vic coppers went on a shocking run and ended up having to shell out huge amounts in compensation..but it’s not about the coppers…it really isn’t…..and esp. on this thread – so my last comment OT.
Thanks dj for the salon link. I was pretty pessimistic, but I was forgetting about the amazing powers of the internet – where it seems that the women who have had to have 2nd and 3rd trimester terminations are putting their stories out there… and are getting heard above the shouts of ‘baby killers’ etc possibly for the first time. (Insert lame platitude about something good thing coming out of this murder.)
In respect of who is going to take over from George Tiller…it’s so hard to believe that the USA which can boast about top hospitals/doctors/researchers etc. will possibly have its citizens travelling outside of its borders to get medical treatment.
Mercurius @ 64.
Sorry if I offended you. I didn’t think I was saying anything that the pro-choice lobby didn’t believe. If a fetus has no intrinsic value then I suppose it makes sense that it deserves no legal protection. I thought that was the position of the pro-choice lobby. If I was wrong then maybe I need to be better informed. Maybe the pro-choice lobby need to communicate exactly what their position is on the value and rights, if any, of a fetus.
You say the discussion topic is the “extremist pro-life movement” and their beliefs. Are they different from the ordinary pro-life movement? If so which groups are in which camp?
Numerous anti-abortion groups have already condemned the killing of Dr Tiller, so which groups are you referring to as having “targets for death numerous medical professionals, nurses and assistants…”? You say the thread is about such groups but have failed to even identify them let alone quote their beliefs.
Yes, great link DJ, Kate Harding is a very good writer and goes where the MSM rarely does.
Colin, I’ll try to play your questions with a straight bat, because I honestly can’t work out whether or not you’re being deliberately obtuse.
People who are pro-choice aren’t some monolithic hivemind that all think and believe the same. I had thought that point was so obvious it didn’t need to be said, which is why I didn’t say it. So, to be 100% sure, I’ll say it now:
People who are pro-choice have many different views on the rights and values of women, fetuses, and so on. They don’t need to, at your beck and call, “communicate exactly what their position is”, because it’s not a ‘they’, it’s a large group of individuals with — get this — individual beliefs, rights, freedoms and choices, and I don’t speak for any one of them, or all of them, and neither do you. It is extremely presumptuous of you to assert the existence of a monolithic pro-choice lobby and then attribute to such people, en masse, a series of general beliefs to which individuals may or may not subscribe. Again, I’d have thought all this was so obvious it didn’t need to be stated.
Onto your specific questions:
Of course I can see there are individual extremists and individual moderates within the broad spectrum of beliefs crudely identified as ‘pro-life’ (I’ve never met anybody who is pro-death, so the label is quite nonsensical, but anyway, it’ll have to do for now.)
There are people who think Dr Tiller, and his supporters, deserved to die. There are people who are glad Dr Tiller is dead. I know this because I’ve read many such statements online this week, and there have been prominent persons who self-identify as ‘pro-lifers’ who are widely quoted in the media as stating Dr Tiller is to blame for his own death, not Dr Tiller’s murderer. I consider such views extreme, and the people who hold them to be extremists.
I am also aware of many people who self-identify as pro-life, who were shocked and saddened by Dr Tiller’s death, and consider such murder to be unacceptable in any context. Their preferred method for asserting their preferred set of laws is civil activism and electoral pressure. I consider them to be moderates.
I am further aware of a bunch of voices in the media who for years have been stoking the fires of hatred towards Dr Tiller, and who have created an atmosphere where extreme talk of harming abortion workers is encouraged, condoned and celebrated. I consider those people to be responsible for Dr Tiller’s death. I think it’s only fair I should hold them responsible for Dr Tiller’s death, since they readily assert that anybody who is pro-choice is responsible for the deaths of fetuses.
I don’t propose to provide links and materials for the above. There are plenty of examples in the original post, and the thread, if you’ve read it. There are statistics provided in the original post which show how many health workers have received threats, or had threats carried out upon them. The quotes are all over the internet, and you have a search engine.
As for ‘identifying them’, if I were able to identify the next person who is going to work themselves up into a frenzy and then go and bomb, stab, shoot or mutilate a health worker in an abortion clinic, I wouldn’t be doing it here, I’d be telling the police.
Now, there are a few questions that are pertinent to this thread which you might care to answer:
a) What do you consider to be the rights of women who are pregnant? In fact, as a male, by what right or privilege do you assert what the rights of pregnant women might be?
b) If you think abortion is murder, what do you consider to be an appropriate jail sentence for women who have abortions? Murder is a crime punishable by imprisonment, and death in some US states. If abortion is murder, there must be a jail sentence attached. The Doctor performing the abortion must be indicted on a first-degree charge, and the woman who solicits the abortion and gives permission for it to proceed must be indicted on a second-degree charge, or third-degree at a minimum. So, spill your favorite number.
c) There are naturally-occurring cases in biology (or ‘nature’, if you prefer) wherein the mother’s and the fetus’ life are one or the other or both in jeopardy during the course of a pregnancy. How can a system of laws, or a philosophy of ‘pro-choice’ or ‘pro-life’ account for this in a satisfactory fashion?
d) Who may determine what women can do with their own bodies, and the fetuses that may grow inside them? When can a state or system of laws compel a woman’s actions in respect of her own body? What legitimation exists for corporal enforcement over women that is more onerous, or differs from that which is enforced upon men? Why do you think so?
Mercurius @ 85.
I accept there is no monolithic pro-choice movement, but there are certainly numerous pro-choice organizations that lobby for the complete removal of all legal protection for the unborn. I have never heard a self-indentified pro-choicer criticize the position of any of these pro-choice organizations. As such I think it’s reasonable to presume that there is in fact some kind of hivemind amongst pro-choicers whereby the human fetus lacks any intrinsic value or need of legal protection. I accept that I may be wrong on this point, but I think the lack of criticism by individual pro-choicers at the lobbying by pro-choice organizations to remove all legal protection for the unborn indicates that I am correct.
Mercurius, I asked of you a reasonable request to identify those pro-lifers who according to you: “targets for death numerous medical professionals, nurses and assistants…”, but the best you seem to come up with is “I am further aware of a bunch of voices in the media who for years have been stoking the fires of hatred towards Dr Tiller, and who have created an atmosphere where extreme talk of harming abortion workers is encouraged, condoned and celebrated.”
Yes I understand you want to believe such a thing, but where is the proof that pro-life organizations are saying such things. You offer no proof except to say it’s all over the internet. Well I’m sorry, I’m on the internet and I’ve never seen it. Is it really that hard to copy and paste a link that might support your claim?
Now to answer your questions:
A) I consider the rights of pregnant women to be the same as all other people – to be treated with the dignity that being a human being demands. I think it was the late Pope John Paul II who said every act toward another human being should be an act of love. I imagine the Pope was referring to that Christian understanding of love as being sacrificial not the Secular understanding of love that is all about nice feelings.
As a male I don’t assert anything. I assert my opinions as a fellow human being.
B) I’m not sure I think abortion is murder. Isn’t murder a legal term? Though I certainly think abortion is immoral and deserving of punishment. As to what that punishment should be… I’m sure you’re well aware the law can be very flexible when handing out punishments. Don’t our laws generally only indicate what the maximum sentence can be?
I seem to recall in recent times at least a couple of men in Queensland who, not wanting to become fathers, have been sentenced to ten years prison for causing their partners to miscarriage. Maybe a similar sentencing structure could be used with procured abortion.
C) I think nearly all places in the world, even those with strict abortion laws, allow for abortions to take place in order to save the life of the mother. I don’t think the law should be used to force people to become martyrs. Although martyrdom can certainly be worthy. But this is really a non-issue as abortion laws almost universally allow for abortion to save the life of the mother.
D) As we human beings are social creatures we need legal systems in place to ensure the common good of humanity is not undermined by individuals whose personal choices ignore the dignity of other human beings, even those that are unborn. As such those in authority have a duty to uphold the common good for all human beings. Pregnant women have a duty to care for the human life they carry within their body, and our legal system has a duty to punish those women who refuse to honor that duty. Likewise men who father children have a duty to care for the children they help create (and the child’s mother?) and out legal system has a duty to either force such men to fulfill their duty or punish them if they refuse to do so.
Hope that was good enough for you. But I’m sure you’re heard it all before albeit more eloquently.
This reveals the crippling flaw in your reasoning: by drawing an analogy between these two situations, you completely omit any consideration of the needs and desires of the woman in the case, whom many regard (though no doubt this will astonish you) as the central figure in a pregnancy-type situation.
You appear utterly unaware of, or perhaps just indifferent to, the fact that if the imprisoned reluctant fathers did indeed cause the women to miscarry then they must have physically attacked them. As so often in the conversation of the patriarchal, as in the conversation of the so-called ‘pro-life’, you have simply left the women out of the equation altogether.
I note you’re also very carefully fudging the question of who you think is guilty and who you think should be punished. But I think I can guess the answer.
Colin, you’ve made your position clear, thank you. It’s also clearly problematic, for the following reasons:
1) You say you accept “there is no monolithic pro-choice movement”, but two sentences later you conclude “it’s reasonable to presume that there is in fact some kind of hivemind amongst pro-choicers”. Which do you really believe? You can’t believe both and be consistent either in logic or in intellectual honesty.
2) You don’t think abortion is ‘murder’ in the legal sense, yet you think abortion should be punished because, in your opinion, it’s immoral. Well, unfortunately for you, private morality is not the basis on which our legal system operates, and it’s not the basis on which justice and punishment are enforced in this society. If you want to see abortion listed as a crime on the statute books, and you can’t offer a legal argument for doing so, then you’re effectively arguing for a system of laws based on private, or possibly even religious, morality. If you want a theocratic system of laws, come out and say so. If you don’t, then advance a legal argument by which abortion can be punished on the basis of “immorality”. And, by the way, to satisfy a basic test of fair justice, if you’re going to punish one kind of “immoral” act, you have to start examining all sorts of other acts, determine which of them are also ‘immoral’, and punish those too. A justice system that punishes one, and only one, act (abortion) for being ‘immoral’, and no other acts, is just another kind of Inquisition. Is that what you had in mind?
3) As for the rest of your statement, you’ve espoused a moral position, and it’s up to you to justify on what basis your moral view of the world can or should, through legal statute, be imposed on everybody else.
Look, for what it’s worth, I’m not personally that troubled if you believe that our public, secular system of laws should be based on your private moral beliefs. But at least have the intellectual honesty to declare whether that is in fact the case. Actually, you don’t need to, you’ve made your position pretty plain: it’s clear you have certain moral beliefs that you want to universalise to everybody else through the coercive power of the state and the justice system. Good luck with that.
What Pav said.
Many years ago, a friend of mine, with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, wrote and performed a song, which began (from memory), “The woman always pays, And that’s the way it should be.” It was a 12 bar, of course.
Following on from Pav’s point, I assume you are talking also about pro-choicers opposing laws that punish women from endangering the fetus inside them through drug-use, unhealthy eating etc. And yet, again, there’s no mention of the woman who is incubating the “unborn” in your comments.
If you took any time at all to consider the woman whose body is doing all the work, you’d come closer to figuring out why most pro-choicers oppose all such laws – because as with abortion laws, you’re restricting the bodily autonomy of women, and treating them like children, or perhaps even less than that. Do you put pregnant women in gaol for eating soft cheeses? Drinking? Being a drug-addict? What would that achieve? Or maybe you’d just fine them for what you are obviously suggesting is child abuse? Or a court-mandated stern lecture?
Especially for pro-choicers who support women’s rights to only be pregnant if they want to be, what kind of view must you have of women if you think they’d knowingly and recklessly endanger a wanted child?
As for other people harming a wanted fetus – like Pav says, if you think that harming the woman is wrong already then you don’t really need extra laws, do you?
Murder and child abuse are serious crimes that come with prison sentences. And we also get to lock up anyone who doesn’t donate blood and sign up to the organ donors register, since the legal requirement to keep other people alive surely applies to everyone, not just pregnant women. Either that’s what you support, or you’re simply looking to have your personal moral beliefs forced on everyone else with no legal basis.
Actually Colin, it used to be illegal to have an abortion in Ireland under ANY circumstances. So the 12 year girl who got pregnant from forced intercourse with a family member was quietly shipped off to London to do the deed. The howls were quite loud from the Palace of Cardinals.
You seem to view women as incubators, depriving them of the ability to control their fertility, thus impeding their ability to rear their young safely.
Mercurius@ 88.
If you’re going to quote and paraphrase me it would be good if you could do it accurately. If you had you could have posted a reply that was actually relevant to what I wrote.
The pro-choicers hivemind I referred to was with regard to pro-choicers apparent universal agreement on the need to remove all legal protection from the unborn. The inconsistency is all on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate, specifically those pro-choicers who say they oppose the termination of a fetus’ life for minor reasons, yet also oppose any legal protection for the fetus.
And neither did I say, as you claim, “abortion should be punished because I think it is immoral”. What I actually said was, “I think abortion is immoral and deserving of punishment” I’m sure if you sit and think about it for a while you’ll see the difference. (Hint, “because” and “and” have different meanings.)
I wasn’t demanding the law reflect my moral reasoning. Surely even you can see social justice demands that our laws protect the innocent, defenseless, and those without a voice, including unborn human beings, even if in doing so other individuals (yes women) are forced to carrying additional burdens. Is the concept of sacrifice for another person foreign to you?
Cat, Mercurius, Anne and Billie, I accept that your feminist world view demands that the starting point of all laws should be the wants and desires of women. (Weren’t some women calling for tampons to be GST free at one time?) However, some men (not FDB of course) think the “brotherhood of mankind” is a better starting point.
Mercurius I’m still waiting for a link from you to support your claim that pro-life organizations have called for abortion workers to be killed.
“Cat, Mercurius, Anne and Billie, I accept that your feminist world view demands that the starting point of all laws should be the wants and desires of women. (Weren’t some women calling for tampons to be GST free at one time?) However, some men (not FDB of course) think the “brotherhood of mankind” is a better starting point.”
I take that’s as close as you’re going to come to addressing my simple argument. Nice try.
BTW, what’s your argument for something completely essential to womens’ health and wellbeing attracting GST?
Colin, you clearly have as little an idea of what a ‘feminist world view’ constitutes as you do (see upthread) of ‘what the pro-choice lobby believes’, or you would be ashamed to write such ignorant rubbish where people can read it.
As for tampons, I don’t know about the GST but I do remember some lobbying for the removal of something called a ‘luxury tax’ that tampons used to attract. Have you got any idea what they cost then, or what they cost now? If you regard them as a luxury and think we should all go back to wearing rags and washing them out like our (great-)grandmothers did, then, as with the banning of abortion, you should put your own hand up to deal with the consequences: bring up the children, wash out the rags, pay through the nose for the tampons, just as women have always had to do. Otherwise, mind your own business. What happens to and in women’s bodies is nothing to do with you.
I wasn’t demanding the law reflect my moral reasoning.
Demanding? Perhaps not, but you did make this statement:
It is dishonest for you to try and now claim that you weren’t advocating a change in laws that just so happens to align with your own personal views.
And neither did I say, as you claim, “abortion should be punished because I think it is immoral”. What I actually said was, “I think abortion is immoral and deserving of punishment”
You also went on to make this statement:
Read in total it looks very much to me as if you want your own moral values to be reflected in laws that punish women for terminating a pregnancy. With each comment you make you shift ground ever so imperceptibly, claiming you’ve been misrepresented. Utterly dishonest!
And incidentally, you still have not answered any of the questions put to you at #88. Your failure to articulate logical arguments in support of your stance (that extend beyond emotional talking points about The Unborn) continues to undermine all the comments you’ve made in response to Anna Winter’s post.
You also seem to be somewhat naive about the lengths the anti-choice lobby will go to (and the extent their apologists will defend them), despite the links contained in Anna’s post, and in reader comments. Nevertheless, here are two more for you to digest: (via Hoyden About Town)
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2009/06/02/the-prolife-movements-hot-rhetoric-and-allout-lies
http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/how_mainstream_are_pro_violence_pro_lifers/#When:19:41:00Z
Colin, quit playing the pea-and-thimble trick parsing language. Very well, I shall start with your verbatim quote “I think abortion is immoral and deserving of punishment”…
…what part of that does not constitute a wish to see your moral world-view reflected in a state’s coercive apparatus; namely legal redress and punishment for infringement on your moral compass?
As for the pro-life movement being a physical danger to health workers conducting the legal practice of abortion:
1) If I knew who the next person who’s going to main or kill a health worker is, I wouldn’t be posting the details here, I’d be calling the police (wait, I’ve said this before, haven’t I? I guess you didn’t read it). I would love to be wrong about this, believe me. But unfortunately it’s going to happen again. And when it does, you’ll have a bloody corpse, not web links, to substantiate my claim. Will you find that satisfactory? I sincerely hope I’m going to be wrong, but I know sadly that I speak truth here.
2) There’s a law in the United States called the “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act” 1994. It specifically makes it illegal to detain, harrass, intimidate or assault women or staff seeking physical access to abortion clinics. Seems like an odd law, doesn’t it? I mean, why does there need to be specific law banning people from being physically detained and assaulted while entering abortion clinics, but not, say, baseball stadiums or public libraries?
Since that law was passed, there has been a steep decline in the incidence of assaults and violence against women and health workers at abortion clinics. That violence used to occur because organized pro-life groups staged fractious, verbally and physically violence sit-ins attempting to prevent women accessing abortion clinics. These weren’t flash-mobs, or random coincidental gatherings of like-minded individuals. They were organised. Join the friggin’ dots, Colin.
And no, I’m not going to provide links. You haz a Google.
There’s a law in the United States called the “Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act” 1994.
I’m assuming Colin hasn’t read all the comments here, otherwise he’d have seen my link at #68 to a post calling for the FACE Act to be strengthened, not just in the wake of Dr Tiller’s death, but because women’s health care workers still face an unacceptably high proportion of violent threats from the so-called pro life lobby. From that link:
That’s an awful lot of violence (threatened and actual) directed at people who are simply going about their jobs.
Yes Rachel, but none of that counts because…I didn’t provide the links! On the internet, things are only true if there’s links, you know.
Indeed.
I was prepared to give Colin the benefit of the doubt and take his comment at #62 as a good faith (albeit somewhat ignorant) remark, but I think it’s fair to say that he has squibbed and fudged whenever others have attempted to pin him to substantiating his views. I’m interpreting his repeated requests for links as either an unwillingness to engage with the many supplied on this thread, or more dishonesty, the kind of which requires sufferers to reject any alternative viewpoint.
Colin has just shown himself to be the “pro-life” equivalent of a Holocaust or climate-change denier: deeply dishonest and morally bankrupt.
A church sign that perfectly embodies the Christian extremism that led to Dr Tiller’s death.
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/06/from_the_kansas_city_star.php
Update: More proof that terrorism works?
What about that so-popular saying “letting the terrorists win”? Or is that oK if they’re “our” terrorists?
The (Muslim) man who shot the Army recruiter in Arkansas is facing terrorism charges. Dr Tiller’s (Christian) murderer is not. Proof that letting terrorists win is ok when they’re “our” terrorists.