Maybe it sounds a little paranoid of me - but I feel like advertising a "recreation of the events" sounds like a threat on local abortion providers.

These people are just wacked and it pisses me off.

That is so fucked up. That's why I refuse to call anti-choicers "pro-life." For too long the conservative wingnuts have controlled the terms of the debate. Let's call them what they are--anti-choice & anti-women.

Fuck me. I'm going to Milwaukee (my hometown) for that weekend, heading up Friday night. I hope I do not run into any of this bollocks, lest I go postal. I volunteered at the Planned Parenthood that provides abortions when I still lived there. I feel terrible for them, not knowing what these twats may have in store. I do hope this disgusting group of people get a low turnout of nut jobs to their "celebration".

Might as well Godwin the thread now: This is not unlike anti-Semitic Christians cheering Hitler as a righteous warrior of God for his slaughter of the heathen unbelievers.

In short, praising murderers--even those who only murder people you don't like--leaves you on very morally shaky ground.

Too be fair, most of those who call themselves "pro-life" are not supportive of Hill or people like him.

With that said, the idea that a murderer is a "hero" and a "martyr" is sick and disgusting.

I with that mainstream pro-life groups would stand up and denounce this.

Moxie
I'm totally with you. For years now I've refused to call the anti-choice movement by their preferred name of "pro-life". I think that its important that other pro-choice supporters do so as well.

This is the real terrorism, people.

Whoa.

Right, but (people like this say) Islam isn't a real religion because of this exact sort of activity done in it's name. Grrr...

"there are others who believe as he does that Christians have to live above the laws of man, answering only to the laws of God; who believe that the Bible not only allows them but asks them, commands them, to kill in the cause of Christ"

I think these people need to work on their skills at logical inference. What part of "though shall not kill" is particularly unclear?

You know, I never thought I'd see a group that could outdo the Phelps for pure assholery, but these guys may have done it.

This is disgusting. It makes all pro-lifers - those who donate their time and money to helping pregnant women - look bad.

That all said, Moxie, if you use "anti-choice" or "pro-forced birth," don't be shocked if someone retaliates by pointing out that your stance is all about killing children.

FYI: I can't find anything about this on prolifeblogs.com or on any of the pro-life blogs I frequent.

Maybe it's all about freaks who are co-opting the pro-life movement for their own twisted ends... but that would mean that you're not supposed to pretend that the weirdos are not indicative of the entire movement.

From the FAQs on one of the sponsoring organization's website:

Q: How can Children Need Heroes possibly honor a convicted murderer like Paul Hill?

A: Paul Hill committed homicide; he killed a human being. Not all homicides are murder. We believe Paul Hill committed justifiable homicide. His killing of the abortionists was just; it was Biblically lawful. He used force to defend the innocent against unjust violence. The taking of a life in defense of another is recognized as justifiable in all fifty states (a reminder of our Christian heritage). If he had acted in defense of any other victims, anyone but preborn children, he would not have been convicted.

Wow. Isn't it amazing that, even while they're celebrating a murderer, they can twist it around so that they're the persecuted class?

Another thing I left out of the post was that the pro-violence wing of the anti-abortion movement seems to take a "just war theory" approach to justifying their actions. It makes me wonder, then, what's stopping the US Council of Catholic Bishops, for example, from one day declaring that murdering abortion providers (or even abortion-rights activists) is acceptable under the Catholic interpretation of just war theory? Seems plausible:

Just cause. War is permissible only to confront "a real and certain danger," i.e., to protect innocent life, to preserve conditions necessary for decent human existence and to secure basic human rights.

Shudder.

Disturbing. Very disturbing.

Very scary stuff, indeed!

If only these wackos would put this much energy into opening day-care facilities for single working mothers or donating their time to feeding the homeless...

I know...my naivete is silly.

oenophile,

I'm unclear as to how pro lifers are "helping pregnant women" who have made a decision to terminate a pregnancy?

Holy fucking shit.

Okay, so abortions are bad, but killing people is good. I get it now.

Someone should ask a pro-lifer:

If killing someone who preforms abortions is okay, would it be okay to abort a fetus if we knew it would grow up to preform abortions?

whoa, ikkin.... whoa. Maybe the Army of God's website has a section where you can submit that question? Ha.

Today on "The View" there was a total nut-job. She's an African American right wing conservative (whose had four abortions, then was born again type and who though she was on welfare, hates "welfare queens") any-who, the point: hypocrites usually out themselves with their fuzzy thinking grounded in selfishness. Selfishness is at the core of hypocrisy. These "prolife" pro-murderers want to use the langauge of "life" and yet have purchase on violence and hate-crimes; they do so selfishlessly to put their views (force their views) on the bodies of others. Hosting events like these (and making the mainstream media aware of their true aims) is important. Inconsistency and fuzzy thinking needs to be exposed and pro-hate, pro-murder groups need to be outed for what they are--faschists.

Just something I noticed - since I'm in Madison and I damn well can make the trip over to protest these assholes - but it's not this week, but in July. July 26-29th. Thursday through Sunday.

Oenophile:

>This is disgusting. It makes all pro-lifers - those who donate their time and money to helping pregnant women - look bad.

But no *true* Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge!

Sorry. You're in league with terrorists. Get used to the concept.

Hell, who are we kidding? The pro-forced-birth crowd has based much of its success on the intimidation of women and doctors. It's only when the terrorists make the movement look bad that they're disowned.

Q re-inactment? Oh...My..GOD!

They call themselves anti-abortion, too. They use pro-life and anti-abortion interchangeably. Look at the websites. We should call them anti-women or pro-fetus.

Ah, thanks for the clarification, Minervasp73! Got the dates wrong. Think I'll stay back in sweet home Chicago then where nut jobs like these are in the teensiest, tiniest of minorities.

Eliane - there's a huge difference between being anti-abortion and anti-choice (as if we don't want women to make any choices in life).

But no *true* Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge!

Sorry. You're in league with terrorists. Get used to the concept.

Why don't you say that to every single Muslim you know and see how it goes over? :)

"there's a huge difference between being anti-abortion and anti-choice".

If one is "anti abortion" as you put it, I am assuming you would be against access to abortion. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

I fail to see how there is any material difference between anti abortion and anti choice. If you advocate restricting abortion, then you are fundamentally anti choice.

AAAAAHH, NO, I'm going to be in Milwaukee that weekend for my friend's wedding!

I also wonder how many of these nutjobs are vegetarians...I love to bring that point up with pro-lifers and watch them sputter and spontaneously combust. (Not that I would ever normally scold anybody for not being a vegetarian, but come on, if you think you're so pro-life, at least be consistent.)

It's only when the terrorists make the movement look bad that they're disowned.

But have they even disowned this? I thought somebody said earlier that nobody in the so-called pro-life movement has spoken out against this murder re-enactment...But I'm too chicken to risk my sanity and faltering faith in humanity to go look at any of their sites and find out!

"Choice" refers to a lot more than abortion, Al. If we're talking about reproductive rights, it involves the choice of whether or not to have sex, the choice of which birth control to use, the option to get emergency contraceptives, access to sterlisation, etc.

It also involves choices for pregnant women: allowing students to be pregnant and finish their classes; preventing employers from firing or laying off pregnant women; adjusting tenure schedules for pregnant and parenting female profs; increasing the options available for adoption; mandating child support; etc.

The one choice that I don't find to be valid is murder - because I don't care if the intended victim is some random person on the street or your own child. Calling me "anti-choice" is completely wrong: I'm not against choice, just against abortion. In short, I don't think that abortion is the appropriate means to achieve the ends of reproductive freedom.

But you can call us anti-choicers - just don't get up in arms when someone gives you the much more accurate label of "pro-baby killing."

Ponies:

1. No pro-life site has even mentioned this event.

2. I'm a vegetarian. :)

(Arguably, though, there is a LOT of consistency in valuing human life above animal life. I can't understand the converse, though: pro-abortion but vegetarian. Because killing is okay so long as you don't eat it?)

pro-choice and veggie isn't that confusing if you take into account that most pro-choicers wouldn't call a single-celled organism a "baby", or consider it otherwise a person.

oenophile,

I have two problems with your argument.

One, suggesting you are really not anti choice in a discussion about abortion, then offering up several examples of where you support choice, when you in fact believe that abortion is not something women should access, is disingenuous at best.

Second, if you think that abortion is in fact murder, would you support the prosecution and life imprisonment of all those who have abortions? Because if you really don't see a difference, that is the logically consistent argument to take is it not?

"Because killing is okay so long as you don't eat it?"
Um, no because killing of creatures that live independent of my body rather than as a parasite, that have feel pain or fear is different than killing non-sentient parasitic beings. Yes, we’ve heard you’re vegetarian but you’re about the only anti-choice vegetarian I know of.

Oenophile, I know that you find this really hard to understand, but embryos are NOT BABIES. Almost sixty percent of abortions take place during the embryo stage. Fetuses are not babies, either, especially those between 9-12 weeks, when thirty percent of abortions are performed.

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html

Hey, if you want to say that "life begins at conception," whatever. If you want to wax philosophical about "souls" and say with absolutely no evidence that embryos have them, be my guest. You can even say that the "soul" it has makes it human-- and yes, a human embryo is in fact human (though that certainly does not make it CONSCIOUS). But saying that an embryo or an extremely young fetus is a "baby" is completely intellectually dishonest. So stop trying to get back at us for telling you what you don't want to hear-- that denying a woman an abortion is in fact FORCING HER TO GIVE BIRTH and DENYING HER A CHOICE.

So ends my weekly masochistic endeavor of trying to speak rationally to oenophile. I'm out.

oenophile: I appreciate that you're replying to many comments, but I still don't really see to why you seem to object so strenuously to "anti-choice" as a description of your position.

"Pro-life" obviously doesn't defend all life, period. It's not inherently connected to being anti- death penalty, anti-war, vegan, anti-lumber, anti-florist or any other interpretation of protecting all recognized forms of life. It means being for "life" in this limited context, meaning vs. abortion.

Why is being "anti-choice" so offensive, it seems to be the other side of the coin. You're not against all choice. You're against free choice to do as you will with your body, in the context of abortion.

Calling yourself "pro-life" paints the opposing side as "anti-life" and I have never hear anyone defending abortion call for the end of all life.

You have all the good PR here. Pro-life vs. anti-life? Anti-abortion vs. pro-abortion? (No one is arguing for forced abortion)Insisting that you'll retaliate by calling people "baby killer" if they call you anti-choice seems like you haven't really spent much time thinking about the language here, and want to up the ante despite holding most of the cards with regards to terminology.

"The one choice that I don't find to be valid is murder - because I don't care if the intended victim is some random person on the street or your own child."

And you also don't care that the "person" being "murdered" would die almost instantly anyway without the support it is getting from the person whose "murder" of it is really not so much killing of a random other person as withdrawing from that other person. Withdrawing one's presence and withdrawing life-support that one has been roped into providing.

It is not as if the fetus is an independent life-form surviving on its own, breathing on its own, and somebody has entered its life and prevented it from continuing to do what it was accomplishing just fine on its own. No; that somebody has rather simply withdrawn from it. Ceased to have anything to do with it, for help or harm.

The "killing" part could be excluded from most abortions with little effort; a little extra dilation and a different tool or three and the abortion would still be a success because it's the disconnection that is the important part, the desired outcome. However, recognizing that the fetus will immediately die anyway, the doctors do not bother to keep it alive during the removal.

Sick.

This is what is wrong with this male dominated society. Violence rules and those who commit violence are worshiped. Nice message people.

Again... I do think it is very important to remember that the "Paul Hill Days" are being put on by extremists that most "pro-life" groups would want nothing to do with.

Would you want the Right to group you with the violent Seattle protests in 1999?

Paul Hill disgusts me, and I think you will find that he also disgusts almost all of those who call themselves "pro-life."

And you're "pro-baby-killing" if the woman was raped, Oenophile! How is that ANY better than being "pro-baby-killing" across the board? You think "killing babies" is acceptable if those babies exist as a result of rape. You are inconsistent and disingenuous.

>Why don't you say that to every single Muslim you know and see how it goes over? :)

They hear it all the time. From people like you who automatically equate "Muslim" with "terrorist" (why am I not at all surprised that you're a bigot, too?), to pundits saying how moderate Muslims must speak out more in condemning terrorism, or they're silently condoning it.

All the time.

You, on the other hand, need to be forced to face the truth. These people are your monsters, and you need to own them. Their not being mentioned in "Pro-life" publications isn't good enough. They need to be condemned, or they're still yours.

I want to point out that when people who are part of fringe minority groups do things that anti-choice groups characterize as "pro-choice," we're quick to call them out and say, "These people are NOT pro-choice, and are WAY out of step with the mainstream movement to preserve abortion rights -- and here's why..."

For example, we've written on this site about the reprehensible practice of forced abortions in China, and also decried a Maine couple who attempted to force their daughter to have an abortion -- two things the anti-choicers were quick to equate with our movement.

We work hard to distance ourselves from extremists who really aren't pro-choice at all. But I have yet to see many those who call themselves "pro-life" publicly decry the type of violence committed in their name by people like Paul Hill.

>
Again... I do think it is very important to remember that the "Paul Hill Days" are being put on by extremists that most "pro-life" groups would want nothing to do with.

>Would you want the Right to group you with the violent Seattle protests in 1999?

The problem with that is twofold, Dave:

1. The Left as a whole has gained no benefit from the Seattle protests. However, the anti-Choice forces have benefitted immensely from the existence of Paul Hills in the movement. As I said before, the murder and intimidation of doctors and patients has served your purposes very well. After all, how many doctors are willing to put their families in danger and wear flak-jackets to work every day?

2. Paul Hill is the logical conclusion of your movement. If you accuse someone of being a "baby-killer" over and over, it's hypocritical of you to act shocked...shocked! When someone takes the actions that most people would consider justified in protecting the life of an infant...i.e., anything up to and including killing the potential murderer.

Sarah,

"A foolish constancy is the hobgoblin of small minds."

I've stated rational reasons for a rape exception - essentially, it is tantamount to a mental health exception and acknowledges the fact that the woman didn't consent to the activity that created the child.

If you disagree, fine, but calling me "inconsistent and disingenuous" is bullshit.

Cara,

Ah! You're part of the "embryos aren't human" club? I'm sorry, but "baby" encompasses embryos and fetuses. Use the technical terms if you want - but that does not mean that my terminology is incorrect.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/baby

Check a dictionary. More than one of those definitions arguably applies to my usage - so get off my case.

I am NOT FORCING WOMEN TO GIVE BIRTH. Last time I checked, I'm not getting anyone pregnant, forcing anyone to fuck without using birth control, or running about in the middle of the night performing IVFs on women.

I'm sorry - did you miss the fact where sex is what causes pregnancy? Not me, not the government, and not the patriarchy. Sex. The fact that it supposedly feels good does not give you sanction to be free from its logical consequences, especially when such freedom is gained by murder (i.e. the deliberate taking of a human life).

You fail to comprehend what it means to force someone to do something. You certainly don't grasp the fact that the woman is forcing her child to DIE. You also fail to understand that you have NO right to aggress against someone else. None. The fetus is not aggressing against you - you're the one who created it. Don't want its rights in tension with yours? Don't create its existence.

By the way, when you oppose rape, does it bother your conscience that you are forcing men to be abstinent? That you are denying them a choice of how to express their sexuality? :) That "force" propaganda sounds really good, right up until you start to point out how a person would propose to achieve their ends.

Carly:

A single cell? Let's see: that doesn't even justify use of EC. After all, the cell starts dividing pretty quickly.
http://www.babycenter.com/fetaldevelopment

Five weeks after the last menstrual period, there is a heartbeat. Most women are just figuring out that they are pregnant.

(Wow, Cara - look at the name of that web page! "What your baby looks like.")

Well, what about the term pro-abortion? Certainly none of you would object to it. I mean, you are in favor of abortion, thus pro-abortion.

Roni,

I strongly disagree. Why call yourself "pro-choice" if you are really only about choice with regards to abortion? Just call yourself pro-abortion. The same arguments used against me can be used against your side. How 'bout "anti-life?" "Anti-fetus?"

I never claimed that "pro-life" and "pro-choice" were perfect labels, but they beat the hell out of the alternative. The Feministing gals get their jollies by throwing around terms like "anti-choice," as if the only choice worth mentioning were abortion.

You also don't understand a LOT of the pro-life movement. Most pro-lifers I know are against assisted suicide - the idea being that human life is sacred.
"Pro-human life," however, is burdensome and unwieldy; I suspect that you wouldn't like it because it implies that you are against human life.

I have thought about the issues and the words. (May I suggest that the best way to piss someone off is to say that you know their own mind better than they?) I happen to disagree with the idea of y'all being called pro-choice while slamming the anti-choice label on us - as if any of you give a damn about fetal life.

Sojourner: pro-life vegetarian, please. Or anti-abortion vegetarian. Whichever.

Al,

One, suggesting you are really not anti choice in a discussion about abortion, then offering up several examples of where you support choice, when you in fact believe that abortion is not something women should access, is disingenuous at best.

Second, if you think that abortion is in fact murder, would you support the prosecution and life imprisonment of all those who have abortions? Because if you really don't see a difference, that is the logically consistent argument to take is it not?

First of all, I would agree with you EXCEPT for the fact that I made my "choice" comments specifically as to the reasons why "anti-choice" is a bad label for those who oppose abortion. The theory is that we "oppose women's choices." Well, unless someone will kindly elucidate what those choices are, it's perfectly valid for me to point out the ways in which I do support a woman's right to choose.

As for your second point: are you trying to say that all pro-lifers are women haters? Again, a foolish constancy is the hobgoblin of small minds - and the creator of bad policy.

Let me turn the question over to Feministing readers: no one really agrees with the idea of abortion on demand post-viability. (Distinguish from abortions for medical reasons, either of the mother or the baby.) What punishments do you deem appropriate?

More than that, you all disagree - STRONGLY - with the idea that men who beat pregnant women and induce a miscarriage, at any stage of pregnancy, should be only subject to assault. Should they be charged with murder?

Al, again:

Sweden decided that prostitution wasn't a good thing. It made it legal to be a prostitute, but illegal to solicit one. Where is the logical consistency?

Should we let logical consistency undermine really good policy? Should we stick with the usual method of preventing abortion: making it legal to seek one, but illegal to perform one?

Finally, if logical consistency trumps all, why do we force women to remain pregnant in the last trimester? (Think about it... there is no right to abort, and there's no real right to deliver early.) That doesn't allow for a woman to have a choice as to whether to remain pregnant and forces her to be a subject to a parasite. Should her rights really depend on the development of her baby? More importantly, should her rights depend on medical technology? What if we find a way to keep fetuses alive throughout all three trimesters?

Does logical consistency start to look a little creepy?

The "culture of life" is really just a misnomer. Conservatives, particularly Christian conservatives, commonly cite the 10 commandments as a reason for their opposition to abortion (thou shall not kill).

If abortion is wrong because it is murder and humans do not have the right to take another human being's life, then this is just one of many examples of internal inconsistency within Conservative rhetoric. If abortion should be illegal because "thou shall not kill", why are so many of the same anti-abortionists also pro-death penalty? Why are so many of the same also pro-war in Iraq?

Of course liberal rhetoric isn't always internally consistent, but that is a far different story.

What looks a little creepy is for you to take the better part of a page and not answer my questions. As I said, if we refer to abortion you are anti choice. Expressing what you do support choice for does nothing to change the fact that in regards to abortion, and this discussion, you are anti choice.

Of course my premise in my second question is ludicrous. I don't support punishment because I don't view abortion as murder. You however, didn't answer, but instead rambled on about several things unrelated to what you were asked. Which really speaks volumes about the supposed strength of your position.

My take on abortion is that people can have whatever moral position on it I'd like, but it's only logical that it should remain legal, even if you consider it morally reprehensible. In countries where abortion is illegal, abortions still take place, and in fact, they take place at a very similar rate to that of countries where abortion is perfectly legal. The difference is that in those countries, abortion is dangerous and takes the lives of many women. Therefore, if one is actually "pro-life," then it makes sense to support legal abortion, since illegal abortion is not an effective deterrent AND IT KILLS WOMEN.

Oenophile, do you support legislation that would make abortion illegal? If so, how do you see that playing out? How do you imagine that abortion laws would be enforced? If a woman miscarries, should there be a police investigation to make sure that the miscarriage wasn't induced? Should women who attempt to abort or who are rumored to be seeking an abortion be jailed for the duration of their pregnancy? I'm curious how , and whether, you envision a society where abortion isn't a legal option.

Al,

Um, no. You are well aware that you asked me a question for which there is no good answer. If I say that I don't think women should be punished for aborting, then it's not really murder. If I say that they should, I'm anti-woman. Pointing out the catch-22 in your question is completely fair.

If you would like a succinct answer: no, I don't think that mothers ought to be jailed for seeking abortions. Yes, I do think that abortionists ought to be jailed.

My questions were really relevant. I remember a Feministing post about a guy who killed his pregnant girlfriend; the fetus/embryo/baby died, too. A lot of Feministing people were happy that he was charged with two counts of murder, even though they don't find abortion to be murder.

Be contentious all you want; but I answered your questions and you refused to answer mine.

hahaha, whatever position on it THEY'D like. ha, ha.

Jeremy,

I'm an atheist, so I can't really begin to properly explain this, but let me try.

The Bible, like the Constitution, is meant to be read as a whole. For example, in the Constitution, you would interpret the 21st Amendment in light of the Commerce Clause.

Biblically, you cannot read the Ten Commandments in a vacuum. As there is nothing which supports abortion, and a few other passages which oppose it ("Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I haw appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:5)), the general consensus is that the Bible prohibits abortion.

Now, let's examine "thou shalt not kill" and the death penalty. Assuming for the sake of argument only that many religious pro-lifers are for the death penalty (which isn't really true), it's still okay. The word for "kill," if I'm not mistaken, refers to something which is not self-defense and which is not taken up in war or in justice.

Genesis 9:6 says, ""Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man." We can limit "kill" in the Ten Commandments to acts which are outside the scope of the death penalty.

Don't forget that the Bible is full of punishments for people that involved stoning. There was definitely the idea that your fellow man could kill you in the name of justice. There is nothing in the Bible, however, about killing children justly. Ergo, abortion is under the aegis of "thou shalt not kill," but the death penalty is not.

As for the war in Iraq: well, I must say, I'm glad that the Christians in the 1940s didn't take the same "thou shalt not kill" 'tude towards the Nazis.

Oenophile, if you don't think that women who seek abortions should be jailed, but people who provide abortions should be jailed, how would women who induce their own abortions be dealt with?

Part of the reason that abortion is so dangerous in countries where it's illegal is because medical doctors won't risk breaking the law, so they're performed by people who don't have the medical training necessary to ensure that the procedure is done safely. Doctors have too much to lose to go underground and provide black-market abortions, and the people who do don't always women's best interests in mind.

Either you think murder is wrong or you don't. Either you think someone should be punished or you don't. The catch 22 isn't in my question. It is in your inconsistent response to something YOU already stated was murder..

I don't support punishment because I don't think abortion is murder. See how easy that was.

As for your interesting interpretation of scripture, what exactly does it have to do with this discussion? i'm an atheist too, and I would think that the numerous contradictions in the bible would make it a text that is neither supportive nor condoning of your position.

Oenophile, I never said that an embryo isn't human. In fact, I specifically said that it IS human. My hair is also human hair. That doesn't mean that it's alive and I'm a "murderer" if I pluck a strand out.

If you can't tell the difference between a baby and a hardly visible clump of cells, you are even more idiotic than I originally thought. And that's quite a feat. I'd also say that you're the one devaluing human life by equating the two. A baby is a born, alive human being deserving of respect and protection. Embryos routinely get wiped away with toilet paper by a woman who thinks she has gotten her period a few weeks late. So get over yourself.

How many intelligent, thoughtful actually feminist posters do you think we've lost on this site because of trolls like this? Because of Oenophile specifically?

Pearl -

Hmmm. How to answer a question that was asked entirely in bad faith. Hmm.

Well, while it's true that we're in favor of women having abortion as an option and we're not at all ashamed of that fact, we also support the full range of choices. While some few anti-choicers are consistent enough in their beliefs to support comprehensive sex education and easy availability of contraception (and quite a few more are disingenuous enough to *say* they support them), most are more interested in trying to discourage fornication and making sure that women who *do* fornicate don't escape responsibility for their actions (i.e. they're punished with an std or a pregnancy that they're forced to carry to term). With that in mind, "Pro-abortion" is too limiting, and "Pro-Choice" remains the appropriate term.

I would not object to the term "pro-abortion rights" or "pro-abortion access," though. It does not cover the full range of my beliefs regarding reproductive rights, but no one term covers the full range of my beliefs about anything.

"Second, if you think that abortion is in fact murder, would you support the prosecution and life imprisonment of all those who have abortions?"

Don't forget the police investigation of anyone known to have irregular vaginal bleeding, in order to make sure the ones who have it from induced abortion (instead of miscarriage, perimenopause, first periods, etc.) don't get away with their abortions. You know, like the way cops are supposed to investigate anything that looks like a homicide, just in case...

"And you're 'pro-baby-killing' if the woman was raped, Oenophile!"

How about if the woman doesn't know she's pregnant yet and shares enough bottles of wine with her husband to cause more than just Fetal Alcohol Syndrome?

"most are more interested in trying to discourage fornication and making sure that women who *do* fornicate don't escape responsibility for their actions"

Some of them even seem interested in discouraging a lot of marital sex too. How many support of them exceptions for wives along with exceptions for rape victims?

God, another abortion thread. Well, I'm sure it will all be worked out and plenty of minds will be changed by the end of this thread.

BTW, wishing to jail abortionists and not mothers in a forced birth regime is a really silly, inconsistent position. The person who gives the order for the hit doesn't get prosecuted, but the hit man does? Interesting prosecutorial scheme.

And wishing to jail medical professionals for "murder" is about one hair's breadth removed from putting their names on a wanted list or taking deadly action to preserve the potential life of the thumbnail-sized organism.

So that solves it. No more comments!

Jenny Dreadful, I'm so glad that you made the distinction between 1) thinking abortion is morally wrong/questionable, and 2) thinking abortion should be illegal. People often fail to acknowledge this fact.

i personally am pro-choice, but i can see how a person - a feminist, even - could hold the view that abortion is morally undesirable or wrong. there are so many fuzzy areas here: when does a fetus become viable? does that point change as the medical world advances, and babies born premature at earlier points in gestation can be kept alive? is birth really morally relevant - i.e., does the act of being born make a fetus/baby into a person?

i'm just saying that rational people could hold either position...and that using one's stance on abortion as the litmus test for whether one is a good feminist or not, or refusing to acknowledge that some people in the other camp have some reasonable qualms - even if you don't personally agree with them - probably isn't the best way to go here. looking at events like this as representing the best arguments the other side has to offer is inaccurate.

that said, i think it's true that anyone who is truly pro-life would be in favor of a number of programs (WIC, HeadStart, or more progressive options) that really support the lives of these former fetuses.

So, am I to assume we're going to start racially profiling white fundamentalist Christian men?

Just curious, because I thoug