Sports teams as avatars of Janus

Remember, kiddies: [insert sports team here] are national heroes, veritable gods among mortals, brilliant role models for our kids.  Exhibit A.*

Unless they’re accused of sexual assault, in which case they are dangerous animals pumped up on testosterone and thuggery and any sensible woman should avoid them. Exhibit B.  Exhibit C.

~~~

*I don’t mean to hate on Stuart Nash at all, it was just the perfect example for this particular cultural paradox.

Same old, same old

Julie at The Hand Mirror pretty much sums up what needs to be said about Garth George’s latest attempt to boost the Herald’s readership through gratuitous offensiveness.

So just a minor point from me:  if your best example of Evil Snooty Maori Looking Down On Their Betters Like They Think They’re People Or Something is … a brown guy walking slowly across a pedestrian crossing? … then you are almost certainly talking out of your ass.

[Actually, I have a bit of sympathy for the moustached one; as a native Aucklander I may frequently be spotted muttering "move like you have a fucking purpose!" at ambling packs of policy wonks along Lambton Quay.]

Spam: it makes you think (aka I need a break from abortion posts)

Today’s life lesson from the spam filter:

Testing proves the presence, not the absence, of bugs.

Thanks, erectile-dysfunction-drug-peddling bot.

It’s the reason the classic Internet theists vs. atheists argument will simply never end.  You can’t “prove” God doesn’t exist.  You can probably establish that it’s highly unlikely, but people who have faith aren’t much swayed by “but consider how IMPROBABLE the existence of God would be!”  Heck, it only encourages some of them.

The flip side was summed up rather expertly by Douglas Adams:

“I refuse to prove that I exist,” says God, “for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.”

“But,” says Man, “the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn’t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that You exist, and so therefore, by Your own arguments, You don’t. Q.E.D.”

“Oh dear,” says God, “I hadn’t thought of that,” and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic.

“Oh, that was easy,” says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.

But this is the Internet.  It wouldn’t be the same without the pointless screaming matches.*

~~~

*Feel free to read into this what you will.

Shit, foeti aren’t actually guppies?

Nothing like being called “evil” to warm my heart on a freezing Wellington night.

But there’s something that keeps cropping up that I need to address.

It’s this notion:

Even women who believe in abortion would know down deep what they’re doing and try to block out that side of it.

Women are in denial, people (or the more common alternative, women don’t realise it’s a Baby(TM)).

Women just don’t know – or pretend not to know – that what’s growing inside them (and using their bodily resources and permanently altering their body and potentially damaging their health or even killing them) is a precious rosy-cheeked infant just waiting to compose symphonies and cure cancer.

Women, you see, are a bit thick.*

Oh, wait.

Maybe women do actually know It’s A Baby.

Maybe that’s why they want a fucking abortion.

Maybe that Baby is the result of rape.  Maybe that Future Beethoven will forever connect her to an abuser and give him another weapon to use – heck, another victim.  Maybe that Precious Life is going to kill her.  Maybe that Gift From God is going to take resources and energy to raise which she can’t give – oh, and fuck off especially on this one, fundies, unless you have honestly never bitched about women getting welfare to raise the children you want to force them to have.

Maybe she really, really wants this child, has planned for this child, has prayed for this child, and there are complications which mean its life will be nasty brutish and short.  Or she gets diagnosed with cancer and if she doesn’t get chemo they’ll both die.  Or she has a family history of illness that she doesn’t want to pass on.  Maybe this is the most fucking heartwrenching horrible decision she has ever made, and yes! Yes, spucwits, maybe she WILL regret it, and feel terrible, and hate herself, and feel like she thoroughly deserves the harsh judgment you so like to pretend you’re not passing out.  And yeah, she probably doesn’t want to think about The Horror She Is Committing.

But she still knows it’s a fucking Baby(TM).  She still knows it would, with time and frankly luck on the health front, be born and become an autonomous human being.  She knows that by having an abortion she will stop that Innocent Potential from ever being fulfilled.

The only thing that is certain, when people start saying “women hide the truth from themselves” and “women need to understand It’s A Life Growing Inside Her [against her will]“?  Is that those people think women are stupid and thus denying them choice is a-okay.

When women seek an abortion, they know they have a Baby(TM) growing inside them.  They’d like it to stop.  That’s why they want an abortion.

~~~

PS.  Chris Trotter seems oddly defensive about me commenting on his post, with that whole “OH I AM SO HONOURED YOUR MAJESTY” shtick (oh man, don’t I qualify as a “Comrade”?).  Dude, you quoted me.  That’s how these Internets work.

And he still doesn’t understand this “numbers without context are meaningless” concept.  Did y’all know that in the past two years my salary has doubled?  Quick Chris!  Draw conclusions about the economy and state of NZ workers’ rights without bothering to find out if it’s because I finished uni and changed jobs, that’d get in the way of soulful rhetorical questions!

Also (dammit woman, get some impulse control) apparently Chris’ post could not possibly contribute to stigmatizing abortion.  This is because Chris is a pansy effeminate bitch, and in saying that I cannot possibly have contributed to societal discourse which devalues the non-masculine because society already does that.

~~~

PPS.  I also love the way some people have reacted entirely predictably to my shits-and-giggles comment.  It’s hard to pick what’s really funny about “abortion images” though;  is it the obviously fake stories attached (the doctor put it in the microwave and drank it through a straw!!!)?  Is it the way that a smudge of jelly really fails to make the antichoicers’ “it’s a BABY!!!! With feet and an appendix!” arguments?  Is it the fact that, in the age of Saw movies, even real-looking gore doesn’t really pack a punch – thus revealing the images’ creators for the out-of-touch privileged old wankers they are?

~~~

*And isn’t it fucking amazing how yet again, the reactionary forces of privilege use the same bloody arguments in every single issue?  See also, “fat people don’t realise they’re fat.”  Because they live in basements, apparently, with no access to mass media.

Abortion reform: all about destroying The Left

I was alerted by the watchful Pascal’s Bookie that it was all well and good to have a giggle about Deborah Coddington’s continuing bizarre fixation with trying to convince us she’s silenced and oppressed through her personal column in the Herald, but I may have woken a terrifying, moustachioed dragon which was bearing down to let me know that women’s issues don’t mean shit.

Again.

My three regular readers may recall my post on identity politics, in which I was a touch critical of Chris Trotter and another white male “leftist” whinging about how all this talk about non-white non-straight non-males having rights and shit was getting in the way of … what was it?

connecting with things that matter to people and making politics work for people

Oh yeah.  For “people” you can feel free to read “privileged motherfuckers”.

I encourage y’all to read that post, not simply to boost my readership numbers but also because it pretty much provides all the context you need to give Trotter’s “critique” of Chadwick’s abortion bill proposal some serious eyebrow-raise.

I mean, let’s start with the headline – which I would totally give the benefit of the doubt as being the work of an even-less-impartial-than-most subeditor if it weren’t, you know, a quote from the article.

Are 18,382 abortions in a single year not enough?

Seriously?  At the risk of expecting you to exhibit some basic fucking empathy, Chris, you know how many abortions would be “enough”? As many as pregnant women choose to get.  As many as are needed, by living, breathing, thinking human beings whose bodies are their own to control.

I’m probably getting ahead of myself.

See, Chris has a question for Steve Chadwick:

“Why now?”

It’s probably a fair enough question, if Chris’ intentions weren’t kinda really, really obvious.

Because, try as I may, I’m finding it really difficult to make the cost/benefit analysis come out in Ms Chadwick’s, her party’s, or even her gender’s favour.

The prioritization is so ridiculously classic Leftist Chauvinist that I’m not sure it’s not satirical.  Self-interest, The Great Left, and then, maybe, some tiny wee gender bonus.

I mean, I can’t see how the bill could possibly benefit Steve Chadwick.

Oh, except that warm tingly feeling we humans get from doing the right thing.

And I simply cannot understand what it could do for women.

Besides, you know, treating them like human beings deserving of autonomy, allowing them to make their own choices about their fertility, and removing a whole bunch of paternalistic red tape from a basic legal medical procedure.  And if the bill doesn’t pass? Oh, it’ll still only force people to have an open discussion about these issues, and only reveal the misogynist spucwits* in our Parliament and society for who they are behind mealy-mouthed talk of “family values” and  “respect your freedom but will actively try to take it away from you”.

But what will it do to The Left?  I think it’s safe to say that’s what’s really worrying Chris.  After all, he’s the one who’s stated that “abandoning the failed, identity-driven politics of the past 30 years” is an absolutely necessary step towards Labour’s “rehabilitation – and re-election”.

Because caring that gay people can have their relationships acknowledged and that men can’t legally rape their wives … well, that was just a drunken bender, a lapse of judgement, a crime on the part of Labour/The Left.

Charming.

Trotter then mumbles something about “What’s sauce for the ideological goose must also be sauce for the ideological gander” which seems to imply that fighting the abortion fight on the basis of ideology is somehow a bad thing for the prochoice side.

I’m pretty sure it also helps that our ideology is backed up by logic and shit.

I simply cannot see what difference – in practical terms – changing the present legislation would make.

Cliff Notes: Chris = male.

I would go off on a massive “let’s make one of YOUR rights contingent on being labelled mentally unstable” rant, but seriously, y’all, SERIOUSLY:

Has the existing legislation created an unfulfilled demand for abortion which her proposed bill seeks to satisfy? That seems unlikely, in light of New Zealand’s undoubted competitiveness in the international abortion stakes.

1.  I love love LOVE it when people ask vague rhetorical questions which they think back up their argument … and don’t actually bother to try to answer the question.  Because that might be inconvenient.

2.  “Competitiveness”?  FUCKING HELL CHRIS, THERE’S NO PRIZE FOR CONSISTENCY IN VIEWING THE WORLD THROUGH ABSURDLY MASCULINE TERMS.

And here’s the main thing wrong with every single thing Chris Trotter says: if it were about a minimum wage or annual leave rights, he would be spitting at these exact arguments.  Oh well, in comparison to the States we have massively strong worker protections.  Guess we don’t need to fight for guaranteed redundancy payments, right?

Still, Chris has a point:  we’re well ahead of countries where abortion on demand is legal.  Because of course the only consequence of increasing access in principle to abortion is an increase in abortions.  And having abortion on demand couldn’t ever possibly be an indicator of more liberal attitudes to sex and contraception which result in fewer unplanned and unwanted pregnancies.  And no one drank during the Prohibition, either, and the only reason for lifting laws against alcohol must be to help people drink more.

Shit, it’s hard to headdesk while typing.

Does Chris get better? You bet.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve no desire to make it more difficult for New Zealand women to access abortion.

DON’T GET HIM WRONG, GUYS, HE TOTES THINKS CHICKS ARE COOL.  I bet he loves women.  I mean, his mum’s probably a woman.

Protip from an amateur to a “pro”:  if you really don’t have a problem with something, you probably shouldn’t run a headline of “IS THIS THING HAPPENING TOO MUCH?” and then only explain that you totes support it … ten paragraphs in.  I mean, assuming you want to communicate your point clearly.  Assuming you have a point.

But Chris has concerns, you see.

But there were hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders who did not agree with me – decent, well- meaning people who could not get past the fact that something human always dies when an abortion is performed.

Decent, well-meaning people.  You can probably insert the word “male” in there somewhere…

Their passionate contention was, and remains, that there is more than one individual involved in the decision to terminate a pregnancy, and that every person is morally obligated to speak up for those who have yet to attain a voice.

I’ve figured it out.

Chris Trotter is really, really oblivious.

Chris, their “passionate contention” is that a foetus trumps a woman.

That is all.

It is not about “life” and it is not about “moral obligation”.

It is about using The Sacred Unborn to control women’s lives.

You know how I know this?  Because no human being, living, breathing, or otherwise, actually has a “right” that allows them to commandeer another human being’s body.  Not even to survive.

And you know what happens when you point this out, Chris?

Do you know what the next line is?

It’s, “well you should have thought of that before you had sex.”

Fuck “passionate concern” and fuck “moral obligation”, Chris.  It’s about women having sex and being punished for it through biological slavery.

Of course, what would I know?  I’m just a silly wee feminist in utter denial about reality – right, Chris?

This is the “icky” factor that Ms Chadwick’s feminist supporters urge their sisters to ignore. It simply does not help to think too much about the messy mechanics of the abortion procedure itself – let alone what it destroys.

It destroys an undeveloped organism that is occupying a human being against her will.  And even if you call it a baby, even if you say “look! blood!”** and even if you use the word “potential” till the cows come home … you know what’s “icky”?  Forced pregnancy.

Hence why in my post on the enemy, I expressed a sentiment which seems to have annoyed Comrade Chris:

In the words of one blogger calling herself the Queen of Thorns: “Dear anti-choicers: go get yourself a f**king tapeworm already and sit down to a marathon of the Alien quadrilogy and then whinge to me about ‘it’s no big deal, just wait X months’.”

I think Chris intends for me to be hurt by the dismissiveness of “calling herself Queen of Thorns”, but come on; it’s not exactly likely to be my given name, is it?

Chris has no response to my point;  I think he was just going for some kind of “OOH! She said a naughty word and Is No Lady” vibe, because after all:

With friends like this, Ms Chadwick has no need of enemies. But enemies she will have if this is the tone of those who carry her spears. And it is here that my misgivings are at their greatest.

Tone argument concern trolling.  Two of the key ingredients in a Threatened White Male cocktail.  Shit, people, I might put people off by saying fuck!  I might be sinking the HMS Pro-Choice as we speak by being uncouth!  I’m letting the side down!  Chris is really worried, honest!

Do you want to know why I’m angry and ranty and full of cussing, Chris?  Because misogynists are denying me autonomy.  Because the law treats me like I’m too flighty and irrational to make legal medical decisions.  Because fuckwits like YOU are fucking running interference for God-bothering fundy wankstains and letting me know loud and clear that yet again The Great Left is no fucking ally to those whose oppression doesn’t affect straight white “working-class” man.

~~~

*Thanks, toad.

**And speaking for myself, I Google “abortion” pictures for shits and giggles.  QUICK, SOMEONE FIND A REALLY SHINY NICKEL FOR SIZE COMPARISON.

~Fame~

Gosh, people, why did none of you tell me I got name-dropped by Deborah “questioning my made-up statistics is just like being gang raped” Coddington in another fine Granny Herald-hosted whinge about fatties ruining everything?

It’s full-on Martyr Time in Coddingtonland, who laments that, last time she casually threw around Holocaust comparisons and assessed people’s medical statuses with the power of psychic bigotry,

the reaction was extreme

For which evidence she readily points to, um, a single comment made on a mean post I wrote about her.

I’d love to flatter myself that I really am some kind of Big Name in the Kiwiblogosphere, but it’s a weeknight and I’m out of gin.  So new rule:  if you have to cite a no-name one-time commenter saying mean things about you on a blog almost no one outside of Australasian feminist/leftie bloggers has heard about … you’re probably not that oppressed, Deborah.

Still, if the current run of abortion posts are getting you down and you want some fatphobic lols, read her full post for gems like

I don’t see many skinny women on television pleading for Government funding to receive treatment.

from the woman who has somewhat successfully passed herself off as a “journalist” while pulling racist numbers out of thin air;

That’s kind-hearted, but if I’m concerned about friends getting too fat, am I allowed to tell them, “You don’t need that scone”, or, “Don’t eat that pie”?

it’s almost inspiring watching her try to score a bingo in a single rhetorical whine.

And because she just can’t resist (much like a fattie presented with a bowl of icing):

Of course I can’t. I would be accused of being the food Nazi.

Oh, Deborah.  I would ask you to never change, but I really don’t need to.

It’s not because you’re a woman

It’s because you might change your mind, you see – you’re irrational.

It’s because it’s not natural – you should be nurturing.

It’s because you don’t really want to – you’re too emotional.

It’s because you haven’t thought about it enough – you don’t understand your own thoughts.

It’s because you took too long thinking about it – you’re too indecisive.

It’s because you brought this on yourself – you should have been better behaved.

It’s because you might be being pressured by others – you need to be protected.

It’s because you might make a decision on a whim – you’re not really rational.

But it is definitely, definitely not because you’re a woman.

Abortion reform: the enemy

Linked via … someone to a very interesting article by Dita de Boni on the 24-week limit in Steve Chadwick’s proposed bill.

Like a few commenters, I think the 24-week limit is an issue likely to derail the abortion argument into a finicky negotiation about “when life begins” and “when the Baby (TM) feels pain” and frankly it’s an irrelevant distraction from the fact that women in New Zealand should not have to plead their case when making decisions about their own body.

But the Herald, bless their hearts, have allowed comments on de Boni’s article.  And antichoicers are not a group known for their restraint, nor originality.  Dear readers, if you wish to know the mind of our opposition, look verily unto the comments section, and feel the power of the dark side.

carlo of Waitakere City is first in the with slut-shaming:

My view is if you don’t want the baby, don’t fall pregnant.

carlo’s pseudonym implies zie won’t ever be in a position to fall pregnant under any circumstances, but let’s be honest; it’s hardly a uniquely male thing to pretend that human fertility is a completely controllable, predictable phenomenon – and that’s before we cover those pesky things like sexual assault and social pressure to put out under a variety of “proper” circumstances.

But wait, I forgot:  You Should Have Kept Your Legs Shut, Filthy Women.

carlo then indulges in some hilarious mathematics:

One according to Statistics NZ 17550 abortions were performed in 2009 in NZ that work out to 48 per day or two per hour and at around (I estimate ) $1000.00 per surgical procedure to a lot of money.

… which nicely covers off the Evil Medical Pyramid Scheme box.  Let me tell you, internet, I would dearly love to know the basis of carlo’s “estimate”.

Roger Driver-Burgess will not be outdone, however, and goes straight into some mansplainish Deep Rhetorical Questioning:

Do we only value life that is completely independent? We maintain adults on life-support machinery until they die, why do we insist that babies must be able to live independently before we accord them human dignity?

Because we all know that Women are Just Incubators.  And of course turning off life support isn’t the subject of huge debate and never happens.

No other group of human beings has the right to live off the bodily resources of another.  Boy, I sure hope no one making this argument has ever ranted about giving gay people “special rights”, that would be, like, hypocritical.

Anne is also from Waitakere, and she would like to raise the critical Real Women Want Babies issue:

But I wonder if those who are able to coldly state “abortion should be more readily available” actually have children of their own or if they have imagined missing out on the years of enjoyment and depth of relationship had they aborted that much loved child.

Because no one has an abortion and goes on to have children when it becomes emotionally/financially/otherwisely viable.  And no one has children and goes on to have an abortion because it’s no longer emotionally/financially/physically/otherwisely viable.  And no one becomes pregnant deliberately but chooses to abort because of medical complications.  And no one chooses to adopt rather than have children for physical/psychological/environmental reasons.  And certainly all prochoicers must be child-hating spinsters, and certainly I do not actually want to have children in a few years’ time.

My partner is going to think I’ve been kidnapped by pod people again.

Don’t you just love the phrase, “aborted that much-loved child”, though?  Anne, if someone loves their unborn child (TM), and has had, for whatever reason, aborted that pregnancy?  You probably don’t need to get on your fucking soapbox and tell them what they’re missing out on, they probably fucking know already because it was probably one of the hardest fucking decisions they ever made.  But hey, don’t let actual empathy get in the way of a good self-righteous wank.

Anne would also like us to Think of the Superiority of DNA and Biological Relationships and also, Haha I Called You A Pro-Abortionist, SICK BURN:

Abortion is not just a “get rid of it now” concept, it’s taking a life – 70+ years worth – along with an entire family line.

Why do I get the sneaking suspicion that Anne wouldn’t be quite so passionate about those lives not guaranteed to live to 70+ and continue the family line?

Before the pro-abortionists rise up and scald me, isn’t there still a demand for adopted children by those who would dearly love to nurture that which others are unable to?

See, there’s a demand for (healthy able-bodied white probably female) babies, and you pregnant women can provide the supply, and now all we need to do is set a price and voila, capitalism in action.  Pregnant women:  they’re just like [canine] bitches, pedigree is everything when you’re flogging the pups.

Truly Kiwi knocks off two of my favourites:

If however they wait until 6 months into a 9 month pregnancy and then choose to terminate I would be asking the question of what took you so long to decide and maybe it should come down to at this late stage you could possibly think about adoption instead after all you only have 3 more months to carry.

1.  Women are Just Stupid.  I mean seriously, what took you so long?  Didn’t you, like, get the You’re Pregnant memo?  And talk about flighty, these women, just going along LA LA LA LA NOT A CARE IN THE WORLD and suddenly OH NO I WON’T FIT MY PROM DRESS and then it’s a pre-ball season slaughter of the unborn.

2.  It’s Only 9 Months, What Are You Complaining About? Pregnancy, you see, is a magic ritual, it only requires the arcane combination of sperm and egg plus a period of time and BOOM precious new life is born.  There’s certainly no strain on the pregnant person’s body, and it certainly doesn’t affect your life of luxury and bonbon-eating by the pool, and it definitely, definitely could not be in any way distressing or psychologically harmful to be forced to undergo having an unwanted creature inhabiting your body.

Dear antichoicers:  go get yourself a fucking tapeworm already and sit down to a marathon of the Aliens quadrilogy and then whinge to me about “it’s no big deal, just wait X months”.

Dilla wants to reprise the just-use-a-condom-you-stupid-cow argument, with a wonderful oblivious twist:

Speaking from gen Y, my peers take abortion way too lightly – if it wasn’t an option I bet they’d be much more careful.

Yes Dilla.  They would be.  And some of them would still get pregnant and would still try to end their pregnancies and would end up bleeding to death on hotel room floors.  Fuck you.

Peter T breaks out Where Do We Draw the Line? … literally.

So where do we draw the line where mind begins- and does it matter if the object was destroyed while anaesthetised?

We draw the line when being A isn’t using being B’s blood to carry oxygen.  See?  That wasn’t so hard.

Let’s round it all off with Graham of Howick:

But in many instances I think it is just a convenience.

It’s just a convenience.  Much like, oh, to pick a random example, Viagra.  Weirdly, you see, it’s not actually necessary for men to continue having erections throughout their lives, and it’s not actually a human right to get boners when you’re 70.

But no one seems to have a single fucking problem with tampering with biology, with fucking around with hormones, with Changing God’s Plan For You, with the “natural” processes of cock-failure, with Viagra etc just being a convenience that men should just suck it up and go without because well that’s just the consequences of being an old dude.

I mean, I realise that some guys may need to have boner-pills, but I just don’t see how society can allow this many cocks to be inflated just out of convenience.

And that’s page one of the comments.  I now require tea and biscuits and a wee lie-down.

We have seen the enemy, friends.  And he hates women and wants to enslave them through biology.  And we are not going to fucking let him.

Abortion reform: It’s about goddamn time

First brought to my attention by No Right Turn and also covered at The Hand Mirror (both excellent posts, so go read them!) Steve Chadwick, Labour list MP and midwife, is proposing changes to our current abortion law.

ALRANZ has a good sum-up of why our abortion laws need to change.  In short: if you’re a Kiwi woman, and you get pregnant, you don’t just get to say, “I don’t want to be pregnant any more”.  Nope, you get to make your case to two “certifying consultants” who get to decide if you deserve to undergo a legal medical procedure, according to a list of criteria which doesn’t even include rape as a ground for approval.

Oh, it can be taken into consideration.  Thank you so much, legislators of 1977, it means such a lot to women that the repercussions* of sexual assault are something that you need to convince two consultants to “take into consideration”.

NRT provides some very good context around why now is really a good time to be talking about this; THM encourages people to write to their elected representatives – and I do too, because you know who’s going to be writing en masse?  The fundies.

But it’s a Sunday night and I’m really just up for some snark.  Fortunately, the Herald obliges, as always.

A Labour MP has taken the controversial step of proposing a new law to legalise abortion on request for women up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy.

It’s a controversial step, of course, especially since:

The Abortion Supervisory Committee has repeatedly urged Parliament to review the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act, which states the legal grounds for abortion, but MPs avoid the issue.

I see!  It’s not controversial because the notion of treating women like they’re real people capable of making their own choices about their own body is terrifying to the Garth Georges of the world.  It’s controversial because jeez, Steve, everyone else has done a perfectly fine job of prioritising “not rocking the boat” ahead of “sticking to their principles”, why do you have to go and ruin it?

As long as we can just keep pretending that only filthy sluts (who are apparently too dumb to realise that they can just keep the sprog and rake in The Fat Cash from The Beleaguered Taxpayer, right, trolls?) ever get abortions, not Good Girls, and anyway the law is working fine (okay, its wiggle room around “mental health” is being utilised as was completely predictable) … I mean, why do ya have to go and make us all actually acknowledge the reality of abortion, and think about women’s rights, and engage with actual issues that affect people’s lives?  Can’t we just go back to stories about cute animals and Len Brown’s credit card bill, and not have to admit that really we just don’t give a shit about women’s health and rights?**

Before 24 weeks’ gestation, registered health practitioners could carry out an abortion at the patient’s request. It would be regulated like any other medical procedure.

Oh shit!  Like any other medical procedure?  But abortion isn’t a mere medical procedure! It’s a medical procedure that only nasty people who I don’t like to think about get!** It’s certainly not like an appendectomy, we don’t get to feel smug and superior about people who get appendectomies!  And we can’t stick the appendix on billboards to shame people into doing what we want them to!

Abortion:  it’s like any other medical procedure.  Only for whores.

Sidenote:  the current ad running on that article in the Herald is for an online bank tool.  It’s motto is “take control now”.  Just not of your fertility, hoydens!

The anti-abortion movement was swift to condemn the bill.

NO WAI.  Quick, Herald, which antichoicer with an hilariously white-male name did you instantly ring for an inflammatory quote?

“If it came onto the floor of the House, we would fight it tooth and nail,” said Voice for Life Auckland president Bernard Moran.

… Well played, Herald.  Well played.  I wonder if Voice for Life actually has a membership, unlike Bob “Family First” McCoskrie.

But will Bernard live up to the standards expected of a true wingnut?

“The present law is a compromise to recognise that there is an unborn child, that there is a human person involved in this procedure.”

BERNARD DOES NOT DISAPPOINT.  But you know, I have to agree with him.  We DO need to remember that there is a human person involved in this procedure:  SHE’S A WOMAN, AND SHE’S PREGNANT, AND SHE HAS A MOTHERFUCKING RIGHT TO DECIDE IF THAT STATE OF AFFAIRS CONTINUES.

Ahem.  You know, it always fascinates me how the people who talk about the right to life, this incredibly important, vital concept, which is inalienable and universal and paramount to humanity … are quite happy to use words like compromise.  Right to life!  Every zygote is sacred! Except for rape zygotes, and incest zygotes, and definitely disabled zygotes.  God doesn’t care about them.

Mrs Chadwick, citing United Nations data, said abortion was permitted on request in 67 per cent of developed countries. New Zealand attitudes had become more liberal than those reflected by current legislation.

You think?  Shit, between then and now we even managed to come round to the idea that men shouldn’t rape their wives.

Delicious eye-rolling icing on the cake:

Prime Minister John Key did not answer Weekend Herald questions about the bill yesterday. Labour leader Phil Goff said he hadn’t given the matter much thought.

Two middle-aged white men don’t engage with the issue?  Quelle bloody surprise.

I wish Steve Chadwick all the luck in the world on this one – she’s going to need it.  Time to get my letter-writing on!

~~~

*I am sure it will escape no antichoicer’s notice that I use wonderfully clinical terms to describe the precious unborn potential Beethoven wunderkind iddle baybee.  That’s because it actually just doesn’t matter, because unless you’re going to step up right now and offer me a 9 month lease on your kidneys?  You’re a piece of shit misogynist.

**Antichoicers:  this is a trap.

***It’s fascinating, as I write this, just HOW MUCH these arguments parallel the prostitution law reform “debate”.

Signal boost: Helen Keller Mythbusting Blogswarm!

Anna at FWD has inaugurated a blogswarm for today, 19 June, to bust the myths around Helen Keller – the big one being that the sum of her life can be wrapped up in an inspirational-disability kids’ story.

Intro post here

Open post here

Post some truth to power or get some reading in!