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[Warren DeMontague]

142. Okay. To start, "Opinion" can mean several different things.

I'm saying the opinion that one person is entitled to make that decision FOR another person, in any case, is not to my mind, valid. That's MY opinion.

Can I stop people from having that opinion? Obviously not.

A woman with a hysterectomy has the same rights, to my mind, as everyone else- i.e. she has autonomy over HER body. The abortion "question" is moot, in her case, is it is in yours and mine, because she doesn't have a uterus and she's not going to get pregnant.

Let's look at Gay Marriage. Do I grok that some people have all sorts of meddlesome opinions which make them believe that they're entitled to tell gay people they've never met that they shouldn't be able to legally get married? Yes, some people do. And yes, I think that "opinion" is bullshit. Do I think that all opinions about gay marriage are created equal? No. I do not. I think that what is valid is respecting the idea that people should have fundamental RIGHTS to self-determination, and that includes the right of gay people to decide for themselves whether to marry each other or not, legally.

Don't like abortion? Don't have one. Don't like gay marriage? Don't have a gay wedding.

Now, you want to play the classic anti-choice game about DNA and life from conception and all this other yibber yabber like we haven't heard it fifty bajillion times before, sort of like the glassy-eyed jesus thumper at my door somehow imagines I've never managed to be exposed to the "good news" in my 5 or so decades on this planet, and oh how fortunate for me that finally someone has shown up to clue me in.

Your sperm is alive. Unfertilized eggs are alive. They also have different DNA, and different unique combinations of DNA. Do they deserve "rights"? The anti-choice delusion; and it's based upon religious dogma and nothing more, is that somehow at the moment of conception some magic action happens in the fertilization of the egg whereby these two living gametes with the same 46 total (23+23) chromosomes which will end up in the zygote, magically transmogrify at that instant into a "baby" with rights. Magic.

This:



Is NOT a Baby. Understand?


And we can add another tick in your disingenuous column. It is the anti-choice crowd who are unable to distinguish between a single cell and a baby "five minutes before birth". How many abortions are taking place 5 minutes before birth? Got any numbers for that, Mr. Numbers? Oh, I know that your average, bloviating right wing AM hate radio asshat loves to float shit about the women running around pregnant for 8 months and then aborting because they "look fat", right up there with the bon-bon eating welfare queen who takes the limo to buy vodka with food stamps... but the FACT is- the STATISTICAL FACT (you know, with those planned parenthood numbers you seem to think you're scoring points by flogging upthread) is that the vast majority of abortions- over 90%, in most analyses, take place before 12 weeks in gestational age. Roe v. Wade and the Casey decision both recognize that a fertilized egg and a baby "five minutes before birth" are NOT the same thing.

The only people saying they ARE the same thing are the people who want to outlaw abortion and birth control.

I think our shared philosophical viewpoint dictates that the issue of whether his mother should have an abortion is an issue in which society as a whole has an interest, and the opinions of members of society are entitled to be expressed -

You do? I don't. I don't think that "society has a whole" has any business being inside a woman's uterus, inside people's bedrooms, inside their bloodstreams, or inside their pants. I recognize that the one and only person qualified to make decisions about a pregnancy is THE WOMAN IN WHOSE BODY THE PREGNANCY IS TAKING PLACE. Period. End of fucking discussion.

Oh, don't get me wrong- you can "express your opinion" all you want- the First Amendment protects that- and as a member of the pro-choice majority in this country, I will respond by saying I think you should worry about controlling your own fucking body, and not anyone else's.



Understand?