Tagged: right to zygote life

Only a woman

At first, this media release inspired me to write a big screed about how the real “charade” is the one where Right to Life call themselves Christians.  But then I read on:

Only a man can make a woman a mother and a wife and only a woman can make a man a father and a husband.

There was only one option left to me, dear readers.

Your semi-regular giggle/grimace at Right to Life

I know, I know.  Another day, another dollar, another No Rights to Your Own Uterus media release which waxes lyrical about how the sovereign duty of [women] is to churn out babies for Jesus.

But on the one hand, we need to keep an eye on the crap they’re spewing.  And on the other, their language is so desperately tryhard it brings a smile to my baby-hating face:

The Family Planning Association continues to seduce our youth and wage war against women, by its promotion of contraception ,sterilisation and abortion. In God’s plan for procreation women’s fertility is a cause of celebration, not a call for sterilisation. Pregnancy is not a disease and unborn children are not invaders and the enemy to be destroyed.

I need a badge which says “Death Peddler”.  Who’s with me?

And ye shall know them by their repetitiveness

Lew has a great post up at Kiwipolitico about Recognising your enemy, following the passage of marriage equality in NZ.  He quotes Kevin Hague MP’s third reading speech, which I shall in turn borrow (this is what we liberals call “giving credit”, Mr McCoskrie):

Over the years I have campaigned hard for the right of our communities to not be outsiders any more, to assume a full place in New Zealand society. With every new reform, the same group uses the same strategy, raising fears of terrible consequences which always fail to materialise.

In the case of marriage equality and queer rights in general, the same strategy usually boils down to “scaremonger about some slippery slope” – the Marry My Dog strategy (Stephen Franks) or the Mormons Will Marry All Your Daughters strategy (McCoskrie).

But exactly the same principle applies to a subject near and dear to my heart: reproductive rights.  Because it’s exactly the same.  The same old enemies with the same old arguments threatening the same old downfall of society.

And as Lew’s post suggests, recognising our enemy and his (invariably, inevitably his) strategy is a very important step to take.  Add to that, I think exposing that strategy is an important point – saying to people “look, there’s Colin Craig, last time he was in the news he said you’d get locked up for giving your kid a dirty look, and he was completely off the mark on that one, wasn’t he?” and demonstrating again and again that, on pretty much every progressive battlefront, we are up against opportunistic lying scumbags who can’t handle anyone making different life choices to them.

So today, I want to highlight the enemy in the reproductive rights struggle – and the queer rights struggle.  Because this is about Right to Zygote Life’s press release on the passage of marriage equality.  Same enemy, people.

What they tried to hide during the marriage equality debate was the essential fundamentalist Christian bigotry behind their arguments.  Note all the talk about “traditional values”, and “history”, and “culture”, and very little about the Bible or Jesus (who incidentally had fuck-all to say on the subject).

In this increasingly secular, open-minded society, it is imperative for the fundies to distance themselves from the religious prejudice which is the foundation of everything they say and do.

But sometimes they slip up.

So here it is:  RTL’s response to marriage equality, a topic somewhat outside their usual purview.  In a single press release they manage to mention God no fewer than eight times in a total of 406 words (counting capitalised masculine pronouns, God is 2.5% of the release).  They explicitly state that sex should only be for procreation, they give a shout-out to the Culture of Death (still, sadly, not a thrash metal band), they still aren’t over people taking the Pill.

The twist is that, having failed on multiple occasions to make us all believe that hurricanes, earthquakes and drought are God’s punishment for our sins, they’ve now decided that homosexuality itself is the divine judgement upon us.  Which is a little circular, but we are dealing with people who also haven’t caught up with in vitro fertilisation.

The widespread acceptance of homosexuality could be God’s punishment on society. The challenge for society is a renewed commitment to marriage as instituted by God. We have sown the wind we are now reaping the whirlwind.

I look forward to high-fiving the first gay porn producer who manages to work “Reap my whirlwind” into a script.

But I’m getting a little off-topic.  The point is this:  you and I ranty liberal bloggy types already knew full well that opposition to every progressive development of the last 50 years has come from an increasingly irrelevant, diminishing branch of extremist Christianity.  In the next battle, let’s shout it from the rooftops.

Aggressively promoting an ideology of lustful sexual licence

In the words of Atheist Pinko Sluts Monthly, where do I sign up?

Right to Annex Your Uterus Life is at it again, now badgering poor Tony Ryall in an effort to stop Family Planning from getting their satanic hands on your precious, sanctified taxpayer dollars.

Their primary reason, as always, is that Family Planning commits the iniquitous crime of helping pregnant people who don’t want to be pregnant stop being pregnant.

But then there’s sex education.  The winning quote:

The NZFPA is part of the sex education lobby that is systematically undermining traditional morality and is aggressively promoting an ideology of lustful sexual licence while pretending to be concerned only with the health and safety of young people.

Remember, if Family Planning really cared about the “health and safety of young people” they would be ignoring all reason, research and reality, and telling them “don’t have sex, it’s bad!   If you ever have sex except in the ways Ken Orr has approved of, you DIE!!!!”

Because that approach has historically ensured there is no sex out of wedlock, no unplanned pregnancies, and no abortion, EVER.

But Right to Burn You At The Stake Life has done their homework this time.  They’ve uncovered Family Planning’s real agenda:  forcing women into same-sex sexual relationships which degrade them.

Trufax.

It’s all encoded in a secret Family Planning document, entitled Keeping it safe, which expert symbologists will instantly recognise as an archaic slogan of the Illuminati used on documentation which is of the highest importance to the plans of our lizard-people overlords.

Ken Orr has valiantly risked his own sanity, nay his own life, to read this vile, blasphemous tome of eldritch cunnilinguistic lore, and he warns the Minister of Health thusly:

The guide is amoral, and promotes unnatural and degrading sexual practices that denigrate the dignity of women.

Now I, as a rampant slut, may read the dread words of Family Planning at a whim, and I can confirm Ken Orr’s statements.  Keeping it safe contains noisome statements of utter perversion such as:

Talking about sex can be embarrassing for many women, but it’s essential in checking out what is safe and comfortable, physically and emotionally.

…

Be clear about what you want, and how far you want to go with any activity and value yourself enough to stick to that. The only way to know for sure if someone has given consent is if they tell you. Check out what your sexual partner wants. Be aware of her body language. Include checking if she is comfortable as part of your sex talk – a whispered “Is this ok?” or “Do you want to go further?” – can be very sexy. Stop if she says it’s not ok.

…

There are some things you can do to make your sex safer and to ensure that you care for your own and your partner’s health and well being.

Woe betide the dignity of women whose innocent eyes should pass over such wretched text!

Oh, fine.  They do also talk about fisting.  Slow, gentle, consensual fisting.

helen-lovejoy

… Seriously, though.  Don’t you feel so sorry for the poor admin person in Tony Ryall’s office who has to open this crap?  “Any mail today?”  “No, sir, just another screed from Ken Orr.”  “Any laughs in it?”  “Oh, culture of death, something about lesbians.  I filed it in the circular bin.”  “You’re doing fine work.  Take an early break if you need to.”

H/T @badtom

Related reading:  AlisonM at The Hand Mirror

Right to Life attacks health charities – and its own allies?

Via Nikki on Twitter, the Red Queen on GayNZ reports that Right to Foetal Global Domination Life NZ are attacking Family Planning and Women’s Health Action’s status as charitable organisations.

If  Right to Life wants to ‘go nuclear’ against Womens Health Action and Family Planning and attack and endanger access to womens and reproductive health over WHAT and FPA’s involvement in pro-choice decriminalisation of abortion concerns, then I suggest someone on the side of progressive social reform should retaliate in kind and draft a complaint to the Charities Commission about the activities of the aforementioned groups in the context of their opposition to marriage equality.

I like the idea, but from a quick reading of the Charities Commission website, I don’t think either effort would have a real chance of success:

Activities that are unlikely to affect charitable status

Undertaking the following activities is unlikely to adversely affect an entity’s charitable status:

  • supporting or opposing legislation directly related to the entity’s charitable purpose

For the goodies, I think it’s pretty obviously good news:  abortion and reproductive healthcare are pretty much the definition of “directly related to the … charitable purpose”.

For the villains, it’s probably also good news:  because organisations like Family First have completely distorted the true meaning of “family” and “social welfare” and “promoting community” to cover everything from street-based sex work to gambling locations to bail laws and the drinking age, all their obvious political activity seems related to their “charitable purpose” as outlined in the Charity Rules posted on their page on the Commission’s website.

The thing is, I don’t really believe that Ken Orr is this stupid.  He probably knows full well that this strike against organisations which actually give a toss about real, born, living breathing thinking human beings is doomed to fail.

But it’s like a trope from every plucky-class-action-lawsuit movie ever:  the forces of evil just try to drown the heroes in paperwork.  It doesn’t matter that Right to Control Your Uterus Life won’t succeed in getting WHA and FPA deregistered, because the goal is to take resources away from promoting health and providing education and potentially saving lives.  The goal is to stop even one person from accessing healthcare information which might involve them gaining some control over their own reproduction.

If one unplanned pregnancy results from this charade, Ken Orr thinks it’s a victory.  If that pregnant person then cannot access safe early abortion because of the hard work he’s put in to making it incredibly difficult to do so, Ken Orr gives himself a gold star.  If that pregnant person or their baby dies because of insufficient education or pre-natal care, Ken Orr doesn’t give a fuck, because he’s all about life oppressing people with uteri and limiting their healthcare options.

The only pity of the matter is that Right to Patriarchy Life isn’t itself a charitable organisation.  Because then it might just be worth spending my own time to waste some of Ken’s in exactly this way.

Right to Life supports … censoring their own extreme rhetoric?

Imagine my delight to see the following headline pop up on my Google Reader:

Right To Life Supports Southlanders Opposing Killing Centre

Imagine my disappointment to click the link for more delicious antichoice hate-speech, only to be disappointed with this sight:

“This story has been removed.”

Fear not, though, it’s still up at the Right to Life website – possibly indicating that it was the choice of Scoop’s editors to remove it, though that would be an interesting tale – so you too can enjoy the woman-hatred on display today.

Right to Life is privileged to support Southlanders for Life in seeking to protect the lives of unborn children at the Southland Hospital. The group of concerned citizens opposes the proposal of the Southern District Health Board, [Southern DHB]to establish a killing centre for Southland unborn  children  at the Southland Hospital.

The proposed killing centre is opposed by many of the staff of the Southland Hospital and they are to be applauded for their commitment to the Hippocratic tradition of respect for the right to life of unborn children.

After that it’s back to the usual madlibbed stuff, but this is a highlight:

It is a travesty to call the killing of an innocent and defenceless child in the womb as care. How do we provide care for a vulnerable woman by killing her baby and then call it a service?

Isn’t it, well, a little bit cute?  How do we “provide care” for a vulnerable woman … by giving her the medical attention she may need to save her life?  By helping her out of a potentially negative life-altering situation?  By, in many cases, preventing her from having to deliver a wanted, planned baby which is already dead or dying and poisoning her bloodstream to boot?

Yeah, that’s not care.  Forcing women – and any other pregnant people who don’t fit Ken Orr’s fundy gender binary – to go through pregnancy is totally caring.  Ignoring the very real, very serious physical, psychological, and economic realities and risks of pregnancy is totally caring.

It’s also really, truly caring to publish the name of the specific staff person at Southland Hospital in whose name the licence to provide abortions has been given.  I’m sure she will find it very caring for being targeted by hateful, judgemental wankers just because she was doing her job and probably just a victim of basic paperwork (presumably the licence has to be in someone’s name.)

Anyway, there’s little in there that hasn’t been utterly refuted before – Hippocratic Oath, breast cancer, “no child is unwanted” (which is why there are no children currently in our system awaiting adoption.  None at all.)

But when they start using terms like “killing centre” – and when either they or a third party feels the need to pull their statements from Scoop – it’s nice to see the true, hatey face of the antichoice movement poking through the “but we just love babies!” mask.

 

On the front lines of the NZ abortion rights struggle

La Ranita has a post up at the ALRANZ blog about her attendance at the Supreme Court hearing on the Right to File Ownership Papers On Your Uterus case against the Abortion Supervisory Committee.  On the basis of her report, I have to be optimistic – RTL’s lawyer sounds like a complete numpty.

Again, things kept coming back to how the ASC can be assessing certifying consultants’ performance without second-guessing their clinical judgement in each case. RTL argue that certifying consultants are “gatekeepers” and need to be honest. While clinical decisions are theirs to make, the ASC can review them (again, how this can be done without second-guessing the clinical decision was never made clear. And round and round we go, for a couple of hours…)

This decision has the potential to severely fuck with pregnant people’s access to abortion in NZ.

There’s a nasty little part of me, backed up by my own economic and social privilege, which can see the silver lining of such a decision, though – because right now, far too many people, including people who probably think of themselves as middle-of-the-road but are actually prochoice once you strip out the Family First spin on issues like parental notification or waiting periods, don’t think there’s a problem with our laws.

Because they never come up against them, never have to try to find two, let alone one, certifying consultant to sign off on their right to control their own fertility.  They never have to deal with having to travel cross-country to get their procedure certified, and then performed, maybe having to take time off work or find childcare – because they probably also don’t think about people who are already parents wanting, or needing, to have abortions.

Part of me really feels we need some horrible, ghastly, heartrending catalyst to actually make so-called progressives sit the hell up and realise that there’s a problem.

But you know, I will happily settle for Right to Tell You What To Do getting their sanctimonious butts handed to them so organisations like ALRANZ can get on with changing mainstream attitudes and getting our politicians to realise that the vocal religious minority who get their thrills screwing over peopel with uteri aren’t actually any kind of major voting bloc.  Hence the whole, “Conservative Party aren’t in Parliament” thing.

Down Under Feminists’ Carnival XL: bigger, better, more punnage

Welcome to the 40th Down Under Feminists’ Carnival.  I am your stunning hostess, Queen of Thorns, “QoT” to my friends and “single-handed destroyer of progressive NZ politics” to my trolls.

I’m entirely enamoured of the fact that 40 in Roman numerals is XL, so I’m putting our plus-size Antipodean bloggers up first:

New study shows correlation between fatness and selling one’s soul to Satan

Definatalie writes about re-learning her love of cycling.  sleepydumpling at Fat Heffalump talks about Why I Don’t Diet and Fixing the Relationship with Food.  Bri at Fat Lot of Good sees that fat-shaming is now getting aimed at four-year-olds to the extent some are developing a fear of food.

sleepydumpling is on a crusade, people.  A crusade for all super-fatties, deathfats, people who just cannot find clothes in their size for love nor money.  Warning: utter fuckwittery in the comments.  Remember, fatshion is activism.  And no, fat acceptance will not in fact kill you.

There’s been discussion lately about the role of the fatosphere on people’s perceptions and lives.  Dr Samantha Thomas has done a for-real ivory-tower-shaking academic paper on how the fatosphere proactively challenges fat stigma, and sleepydumpling covers the same topic in Breaking Down Fat Stigma: Shame.  Sonya at Lipmag was one of the interviewees for Dr Thomas’ paper.

The body plays a huge (BOOM BOOM!) role in a lot of feminist discussion, and things always get good and heated around one fact in particular: pregnancy and how you are probably Doing It Rong right this minute.

You read a book while pregnant?  You’re gonna DIE!!!

Feminethicist posts a quick note about double standards around scars – especially stretch marks.  Aussie MP Andrew Laming fights the good fight for homebirths.  Bluebec confronts the notion that any particular way of having babies is “unnatural”.

Pregnancy isn’t always wanted or continued, of course, and that’s why apparently I have to keep explaining that the “right to life” movement are a bunch of wanks with the intellectual honesty of a guppy.

And of course once Junior makes it out into the world it’s all downhill for progressive parents, who simply cannot win.  Ever.

Buy this Mozart CD or your baby will sprout wings!

Blue milk continues to post on her presentation on feminist parenting.  Part 4 covers “what is feminist parenting?” and Part 5 looks at the difficulties with being a feminist parent.  She also talks about the idea that some parents are too sexy to breastfeed – and provides a challenge with a follow-up post on glamorous images of breastfeeding.  Another post discusses pro-feminist fathers.

Breastfeeding also shows up as a really nifty shorthand for “crazy woman” in the Game of Thrones series, as discussed at Hoyden About Town.

Bee of a Certain Age talks about learning to love after having her children.

Our kids just aren’t getting a break:  Lessons to be Learned covers the Toddlers and Tiaras phenomenon and blue milk looks at high fashion’s role in sexualising girls.  Feminethicist has been having some fun challenging the heteronormativity when people play joke-matchmaker with babies.

Unsurprisingly, I did not take kindly to Family First’s insinuations that some families are just “obviously” worse than others.

For further reading, Mindy at Hoyden About Town has reviewed The 21st Century Motherhood Movement.

Where does a lot of this crap come from? Our wonderful media, of course.

This just in: reading mainstream media could be the reason you’re really angry all the time

Feminethicist is just thrilled by a camera app that makes your romantic partner look tolerable again. I have a slight issue with bra companies’ media releases being treated as scientific fact, with a sprinkling of obesity panic on top.

Rachel at Musings of an Inappropriate Woman takes on the latest theories of Bettina Arndt and the treatment of women who are famous for being pretty and throwing together a good outfit.

LudditeJourno, posting at The Hand Mirror, covers Michael bloody Lhaws’ preference for referring to poor brown people as “feral” and coleytangerina at The Lady Garden gets freaked out by news of a “cougar attack” … then a tad depressed.

Emma at Lip asks where the strong women are in literature.  Kate Barker discusses anti-feminist imagery.  Cara at Life is a feminist issue talks about our media ban on reporting suicide, and whether that’s really looking all that effective.

MJ at Kiwiana (inked) tells Stuff where they can shove their scare quotes when reporting on domestic violence.

Time for something a bit more positive:

Retrospective:  awesome women being awesome

Penguin Unearthed talks about Gudridur Thorbjarnardottir as part of her Travelling Feminist posts – here’s another on Norway.  The Hoydens share the news that Sensei Keiko Fukuda has become the only woman ever granted the 10th degree black belt in judo.  Double Antandre talks about Nancy Wake.

Another big issue of the past month has been identity, especially given Google’s being douchebags about what’s considered a “real” name (all the more aggravating because it’s based on needing “real” demographics to sell to shitbox marketers).

I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine

Chally talks about the kinds of history that go into building identity.  blue milk passes on information on the My Name is Me project created in response to Google+ being douches.  Giovanni talks about Google+, identity and cyberpunk.

Where does a lot of identity come from?  Our “race”, social construct that it is, and religion, and culture, and all other kinds of pretty touchy issues.

Nothing witty to put here

Mindmadeup asks if Australia is a racist nation.  Chally confronts racism at the bus stop.  stargazer discusses how the “default is male” concept extends to commentary about Muslims.  stargazer also posted about the start of Ramadan.

Chally challenges the notion that feminism and religion are mutually exclusive.  Bluebec talks about gender exclusion in the Freemasons.  Gladly the Cross-Eyed Bear covers freedom from religion.

Queen Emily at Questioning Transphobia asks “When am I trans?” and when trans people are “real”.

Love and Marriage

In happier news, Rachel is getting hitched!  Of course, planning a wedding doesn’t get any easier when you’re a feminist so she’s provided a handy Guide to Feminist Wedding Planning.  News With Nipples covers some tragi-comic anti-marriage-equality protests.  Hayley at Equal Love Equal Rights posts on marriage equality.

Mr Wainscotting is pleased to announce the launch of Legalise Love, a group looking to get some actual marriage equality happening in NZ.  Idiot/Savant has been taking an interest in our MPs’ views on the subject:  here he is on Hone Harawira and David Parker (and it’s not good news).

As Chally notes, though, we shouldn’t devalue single women.

Then there’s some perennial issues for feminist bloggers:

Poverty

stargazer helped produce a session on poverty at the Human Rights Commission’s diversity forum and also blogged her speech from the forum on needing an action plan on human rights.  Maia at The Hand Mirror dissects a “game” where privileged people get to pretend to be poor for a while and probably learn some Important Moral Lesson.

Deborah Russell discusses welfare in the Dominion Post.

Rape culture / violence

Blue milk on some truly grotesque rape-as-comic-device bullshit.  Deborah discusses the ridiculous “guidance” given to women around “keeping themselves safe”.

The Naked Philologist deals in two parts with the subject of teaching problematic material – Can you teach Chrétien without talking about rape? and You might be able to teach Chrétien without talking about rape, but I shan’t.

LudditeJourno posts about the Wellington Sexual Abuse Network and preventing sexual violence.  Idiot/Savant notes that domestic violence still gets excused if you’re rich and powerful enough.

Disability

A guest poster at Hoyden About Town talks about being a “border gimp”.  Joanna at The View From Down Here talks about building community.

Pay gap

Deborah talks about the gender pay gap and another Deborah’s predictable privileged attitude towards it.  Idiot/Savant covers the Greens’ and CTU’s calling of National’s bluff: if people can just ask labour inspectors to check there’s pay parity in their workplace, maybe we should just start doing that all the time.

And finally, a little collection of random items to fill out your reading.

We can’t stop here, this is bat country!

Blue milk on potentially-problematic vulva-themed art.  Geek Feminism on social media protest action.  Bluebec on trusting people to make their own decisions.  Maia at The Hand Mirror on the cost of being a woman in public.  Chally’s thoughts on being “born this way”.  A guest post on Geek Feminism about encouraging women’s participation in geekiness.  Blogger at the Cast Iron Balcony on how to help the Sylvia Creek anti-logging protesters.  Bluebec on polyamory and doing it right. Feminaust posts on listening to sex workers.

That’s all she wrote

Thanks to our lovely submitters, especially Chally and Rebecca who made my job a heck of a lot easier!

The 41st edition of the DUFC will be hosted at A Touch of The Crazy.  As we still seem to be having issues with blogcarnival, send your submissions directly to stef_thomp [at] hotmail [dot] com.  We’re four years in and going strong but we need your help to keep it awesome!

The list of DUFC contributors is woefully out of date, but feel free to peruse it in the meantime while I get some well-earned coffee.

Saying don’t make it so: Right to Foetal Control edition

You have to give this to Right to Zygote Life, they are persistent little misogynists.  And now they’re taking their case, with the sole purpose of making it harder for women to freely choose the fate of their own damn bodies, to the Supreme Court – but, thank Satan and all his little wizards, will not be allowed to argue the interminable fucking point about biologically-dependent cell clumps’ “right” to some poorly-defined notion of “life”.

In a classic madlibbed press release, Right to Fuck Over Women proclaim this a total injustice, because it takes away their ability to confuse pretty clear issues of legislation and medical authority with emotive bullshit ignores the hugest most awful abuse of human rights eveeeeeeeer!!!!

Cue the usual spiel:

The humanity of the unborn child is an inconvenient truth, for acceptance of the humanity of the unborn child would be an impediment to the killing of innocent human beings.

Nup.  I will continue to say this as long as I have breath:  no airy-fairy “humanity of the undead unborn” notion would, in fact, stand in the way of abortion.  Bear with me for the next bit because it’s part of the same bollocks:

The High Court found that “The rule according human rights only at birth is founded on convenience rather than medical or moral grounds.” “A legal right to life would be incongruous in such a law, for it would treat the unborn child as a separate legal person, possessing a status fundamentally incompatible with induced abortion, far from modifying the born alive rule. The abortion law rests on it.”

You know why it’s “convenient”, guys?  Hint:  it’s not because evil slutty women just want to be able to kill babies for the glory of the Dark Lord.  It’s because once you get your way, and get some vague notion of “life” as it pertains to individual human beings’ existences set into law … you still don’t get to ban abortion.

Because then you get to have the really inconvenient argument which will, happily for us sluts, reveal your basic anti-uterus-havers (“women” to you small-minded binary-lovers) stance.  And yes, I’m disagreeing with the High Court here:  recognising the foetus as a separate legal person would not, in fact, be “incompatible” with induced abortion.

Because no born human being’s “right to life “allows them to unilaterally seize control of someone else’s body.

No born human being gets to subpoena another’s kidneys.

No born human being gets to demand to be hooked up to another’s lungs and force the other to breathe for them.

Not even if you’re dying.  Not even if you’re dying and the person whose kidney could save you is the person who stabbed you in the kidney.  Not even if you’re in a coma unable to breathe on your own accord.

The “right to life”, as you pretend it to be, doesn’t even apply now to supposedly-endowed-with-it born people.  Why the fuck do you assume it would apply to da widdle feeeetuses?

And every single time a prochoicer raises this argument, the response (if they bother to engage) comes straight out of the “but you had sex and are therefore a filthy whore who must suffer for it”* playbook.

And that’s a bit inconvenient.

Antichoicers probably don’t actually comprehend this, though.  Because when your argument is basically entirely derived from a worldview which treats women/uterus-havers as walking incubators whose life is only really necessary to produce the next divinely-mandated generation, it’s probably pretty easy to forget that they’re human beings too, and they have a right to life too. Which, as shown above, doesn’t cover being forced to loan their organs to someone else.

And while your softly-softly societally-acceptable sex-shaming and irresponsible-teen-slut-fear-mongering and Aren’t We Reasonable approach might help get moderate types, people who never have to think about this kind of stuff, people who just “feel” that abortion is “icky” on your side … I have this feeling it’s going to be a lot harder to convince them that they also believe that other human beings have the right to take over their bodies and fuck up their health and irrevocably alter their lives for the sake of consistency.

The idea that “life begins at birth”,** at least with regards to abortion, isn’t convenient for our sakes, Right to Steal People’s Autonomy.  It’s convenient for yours.  My prochoice views remain entirely consistent whether I acknowledge conception*** as some momentous event in the course of human life.  My belief in people’s bodily autonomy is not threatened by the idea of ensoulment or a heartbeat or widdle fingers and toesies.

Your arguments, on the other hand, being entirely pulled out of your asses to justify imposing/maintaining a world in which women are lesser, in which women have no agency, in which uterus-havers must all be women because uterus = incubator = tool to propagate society aka “woman”, would find it daaaaaamn inconvenient to have an actual discussion about a world which recognises the “right to life” you pretend to give a shit about.

But please.  Take your arguments to Parliament.  Force our MPs to actually confront the reality of abortion laws in NZ and the hateful controlling world you want to bring about.  I assure you, I am the very opposite of afraid.

~

*And if you want to come and argue that being forced to gestate a pregnancy which is unwanted isn’t suffering, you are invited to sit down for an Alien marathon and come back to me when you’ve figured out why it’s relevant.

**Specifically, first breath.  References?  Oh, only the Bible.

***Insert traditional “which makes God the world’s biggest abortionist” statement here.

FUCK YEAH COURT OF APPEAL

H/T Octavia:

The Court of Appeal (Chambers, Arnold and Stevens JJ) has allowed the [Abortion Supervisory] Committee’s appeal and dismissed [Right to Life’s] cross-appeal.  The Court unanimously held that the law does not recognise or confer a right to life on the unborn child.  Nor had Miller J erred in finding the Committee had properly discharged its function with respect to counselling services

… The decisions of certifying consultants involved medical judgment alone.

… The majority quashed Justice Miller’s findings about the lawfulness of abortions.

Fuck.  Yes.