Opinion

Pro-life bills spark offensive and ludicrous responses

Pro-choice folks aren’t too happy with the package of abortion restricting bills in Michigan’s House of Representatives. And they’re going to new extremes to gain support for abortion and ensure that it remains legal in all circumstances. The bills (part one has passed), which have been decried as the worst ever by the left-wing political blog Think Progress, would ban abortions after 20 weeks, outlaw the prescription of the abortion drug through a web chat or phone call, and require surgical abortion clinics to have a surgical suite.

Calling Colleagues Would-Be Rapists

A debate about the bills ended with one Michigan rep barred from speaking after she made an inappropriate statement in an attempt to stir up controversy. Rep. Lisa Brown claims she was silenced for simply using the word “vagina.” But, as reported by Fox News as well as every other news station, she actually said:

I’m flattered you’re all so concerned about my vagina. But no means no.

The difference between simply talking about vaginas and this statement is obvious, and Brown likely knew exactly what she said and the impact those words would have. She implied that the reps supporting the bill were interested in her sexually and that they were placing sexual pressure on her. Using the well-known anti-rape statement “No means no” clearly implied that she views her colleagues as would-be rapists. Yet Fox News reports that Brown doesn’t understand why her comment caused such a stir and was seen as offensive. She plays dumb, saying:

I used an anatomically correct word. I said vagina. Is there something wrong with that? Can I not say elbow? I don’t see the difference.

Rather than apologize for her immature and tasteless statement, Brown took it a step further and went on to perform “The Vagina Monologues” on the steps of the state capitol. If you haven’t heard of or seen it, read this. According to Life Site News, it includes the story of a 24-year-old lesbian getting a 13-year-old girl drunk before molesting her.

Threatening to Withhold Sex

As reported by the Detroit Free Press, state Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit, is calling on women to withhold sex to stop these pro-life bills, implying that sex is nothing but a ploy women use to get what they want and that men are nothing but slobbering fools who will do anything, including alter their convictions, for the opportunity to roll in the hay. Sex is not a game, and the notion that it is has gotten us into the trouble we are in, what with high unintended pregnancy and STD numbers, and rising divorce rates. Still, Tlaib thinks wives should refrain from sex in order to get what they want (she wrongly assumes all women want open access to abortion). She says:

We’re launching a war on women. Stop having sex with us, gentlemen, and I ask women to boycott men until they stop moving this through the House.

Women don’t want men to view them as sexual objects, but they can imply that that is exactly what women are and then use that to get what they want? You can’t have it both ways.

Supporting Inadequate Health Care to Save/Make Money

The State News says:

No one disagrees that standards should be high in an operating room. But the standards set in abortion clinics by this bill will result in higher costs for the patient and the clinic, possibly causing many clinics to shut down and leaving many women who wish to get an abortion out of luck.

According to them, abortion should be cheap. But what about life-saving surgeries, including lung transplants or brain surgery? Here’s the thing: if someone needs a new heart, he is expected to find a way to pay the enormous cost. So if someone wants an abortion, why should she get to pay little to nothing? This makes no sense. Few women can list “medical” as their reason for abortion. Abortion is a “want.” Transplants are a desperate “need.” When pro-aborts say that setting higher safety standards will mean charging more money, and then fewer women will be able to receive an abortion, they are actually worried about their own wallets. Abortionists are afraid of losing business. If they cared about women, they would want them to have the best care possible. After all, what woman doesn’t want her surgeon held to high standards?

Devaluing Human Life

StateNews.com doesn’t stop there. The publication goes on to write about how terrible it is to give birth to a child with special needs:

Many abortion clinics in Michigan offer procedures through the 24th week of pregnancy; this new rule would give women one fewer month to make a very difficult decision[.] …

Mothers whose babies develop severe health defects in the 21st week then are subjected to seeing their baby suffer, and then eventually die either before, at or a short time after birth, proceeding to the same result as an abortion.

No woman should have to deal with the emotional turmoil caused by giving birth to a stillborn baby or watching her baby die after the first few months of birth when she could have had the option to avoid it.

They said it: abortion is the same as death after birth. In addition, saying that no woman should have to deal with the loss of a child is true. No mother should go through that. But no child should die at the hands of her mother.  I think it’s safe to say that giving birth to a dead baby through abortion is the same as giving birth to a stillborn baby, except for the fact that the baby would have died naturally, not through murder. And yes, watching your baby die after a few hours, days, months or years of struggled existence is painful, heartbreaking, and emotionally draining. But there will be memories, love, and even some joy. There could be memories of that baby grasping her mother’s finger, gazing into her father’s eyes, or snuggling up to her mother’s warm body. But even if a parent doesn’t get those memories, there will be the love, the hope, the strength to celebrate. There could even be a miracle, and the child may live.

The State News seems to imply that women are too weak to handle having a baby who has special needs and struggles to live. I tend to believe that women are much stronger than anyone usually gives them credit for. Losing a child is an unimaginable pain, but killing that child is an unimaginable act.

The historic pro-life bills of Michigan mark another step in the long-awaited change that is coming. These bills bring hope to pro-lifers, and at the same time are causing stress in pro-abortion circles. Chaos is working to keep pro-life activists off-track. So while pro-life Americans pause to celebrate these achievements, their eyes should be ever fixed on the future.

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  • Rebecca Downs

    This really is ridiculous… so glad that someone decided to clear it up! 

  • Detroiter327

    The Vagina Monologues changes its plays with each performance. Saying that that particular piece was played that day is actually wrong. V.M does plays that relate to rape and molestation on a regular basis, does that mean they are encouraging it? No! The bible speaks about rape. Does that mean they are also encouraging and condoning it? 

    • mythought

      The author of this article didn’t claim that any certain play was performed that day.  She merely let her readers know what type of plays Vagina Monologues performs.  Maybe you should try a little less hard to find “inaccuracies” and kept your own facts straight.

      • Detroiter327

        I do. Im actually a huge fan of the play and obviously the author did not know the format ;) 

  • http://www.facebook.com/rbfthomas Roger Thomas

    I have a friend who is a MI legislator who was at that session.  He’d already made his statement on the bill, and lining up to make another one would have been difficult, but he wanted to get back up an answer Brown with, “Don’t flatter yourself – nobody’s interested in you.  This is about protecting women.”

  • Anonymous

    ”
    According to them, abortion should be cheap. But what about life-saving surgeries, including lung transplants or brain surgery? Here’s the thing: if someone needs a new heart, he is expected to find a way to pay the enormous cost.”

    There are two huge problems with that statement. First, it’s only in this messed-up country (among developed countries) where people have to pay exorbitant sums for lifesaving medical care. And the same people who deny women’s rights to abortion are the people who refuse to try to do anything about that problem. 

    Secondly, do you really think that a surgical abortion is the same thing as a lung transplant or brain surgery? In an abortion, the doctor goes through the vagina (am I allowed to use that word here?), which is an opening that’s already there. It’s far less invasive and dangerous than the other surgeries you mentioned, with which there is a far greater risk for infection and much more specialized equipment (and doctor) is needed. Those surgeries are extremely complex and usually also require a team of doctors and nurses to be present, so yes the rooms have to be bigger than for a surgical abortion during which, by the way, most patients are awake and only local anesthesia is used. They’re completely different. 

    • http://twitter.com/Nikechic619 Charlene Ocampo

      You seem to think  an abortion procedure is as natural as a bowel movement.  An abortion is a high risk procedure.  Don’t let planned parenthood tell you they could do it with their eyes closed.  (Well they probably can, and they probably do).  Look up the statistics on infection rates from abortions.

      • Shelley

        Look up statistics on death in childbirth and pregnancy–abortion (done legally by a doctor) is actually safer. I understand why some people are against abortion, but trying to make it sound more dangerous than it is doesn’t have anything to do with it. 

        And I didn’t say it was “natural”–but neither are lung transplants or brain surgery, the procedures to which it was compared, and they are much more complex and invasive. My point here is that the comparison is ridiculous. 

        • Rebecca Downs

          But speaking the truth about abortion is not merely to make it sound more dangerous than it is, and it very much has a lot to do with this woman’s so-called “right.” When a woman has an abortion she not only is ending the life of her child, but she is also severely puts herself at risk. I’m not even talking about physical risks, though those certainly cannot be discounted… for the purpose of this post though, what about the mental health risks? Do you deny that those happen? Yes, actually giving birth and having a baby may have consequences alongside with it, but there is also joy, happiness and excitement. A woman who has had an abortion quite possibly faces regret and loss over such a permanent decision…

          http://afterabortion.org/1999/the-emotional-effects-of-abortion/
          http://www.prolife.com/ABORT12.html
          http://www.annespeckhard.com/Anne_Speckhard/Posttraumatic_Responses_to_Pregnancy_and_Abortion.html

          • Shelley

            Yes, I’ve heard all of that and I know that there are women who now regret having had an abortion (as well as women who are grateful for it). 

            However, those are way off-topic here. (Changing physical requirements for abortion clinics would have no effect on the present or future psychological state of a woman who’s having an abortion.) The original point was that these extensive new regulations are all about finding a backdoor method to outlaw abortion by creating excessive rules for abortion clinics, claiming that they are necessary for the patients’ safety. The writer of this column then compared abortion to far more complex and invasive surgeries, claiming that they have similar requirements and risks when that is simply not true. 

            That said, I do appreciate your thoughtful and polite response, and I really don’t take the possible psychological effects of abortion lightly.  

        • Babylover

          Actually Shelley, abortion probably has the highest death rate of any surgery. Do you know why? Because it kills a LIVING (yes Shelley, he/she is living) individual!

  • Shelley

    We’ve kind of already had this discussion on another thread, but I have to point out again that these bills do affect a woman’s right to do as she pleases with her body, specifically, her vagina (and uterus). The representative is saying “no” to forced pregnancy. It makes perfect sense to me, and I applaud her for standing up and making the case.

    The fact that she was “punished” like an impudent child only goes to show what men in government really think about women who dare to enter a man’s world and stand up for their rights. 

    • mythought

      They also affect another separate individual person’s right to live.  Clearly we’re not only talking about the woman’s body here.  I wish you would stop acting like the baby’s body and the woman’s body are one body.  

      • Shelley

        Well, obviously some people don’t think that a fetus has “rights” per se, (and even if they did, no one has the “right” to use someone else’s body against her will regardless) but in the interest of remaining on topic, really I just wanted to point out Rep Brown’s response was neither “ludicrous” nor “offensive”.

        • Matthias

           No, no. The fact is, you still have to justify the killing of an innocent human being. No one has a ‘right’ to do that, do they now? Rep. Brown’s response was not only offensive, but it was irrelevant.

          • Shelley

            Um, only if you think that a woman’s right to her own body is irrelevant (which many of you obviously do). 

          • Babylover

            Shelley, when do you think life actually begins?

          • Shelley

            At birth. Just as an aside, when someone asks you guys how old you are, do you answer with respect to your birth or conception?

            In all seriousness, I can see a case being made for “life” beginning when brain activity begins. Kind of like how I consider a person dead when that brain activity stops permanently.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            So the growing human being is dead, then becomes alive?

          • Shelley

            No, it’s living tissue growing within the mother’s body, kind of like a tumor. I don’t think it becomes a separate life until it’s born or, at the very earliest, when brain activity begins. Keep in mind that I was explicitly asked when I think life begins; I’m just providing my answer.

            Also, you didn’t answer: do you tell people your age beginning from birth or conception? Do you think “life begins at conception” is a valid argument for someone who’s 20.5 years old by conventional standards and wants to purchase alcohol in the US? I’m just curious.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Wow. What your saying has no basis in biology. You’re just arbitrarily defining the baby as tissue and deciding when you’re going to call it life based on nothing beyond what’s convenient to the case you’re making. Please, crack open an embryology textbook sometime.

            Come on, Shelly: don’t you think it’s a little irresponsible to be advocating a position on a bioethics issue you don’t even grasp the science behind?

            PS: Rhetorical conventions by which society describes age don’t trump science.

          • Shelley

            It’s rather ironic that you’re claiming I don’t understand science after some of the things you’ve said, haha. I was asked when I think life begins. Of course a zygote is technically alive, but so are the egg and sperm before they unite. So are everyone’s individual organs unless their blood flow is cut off. So are the petunias out by my mailbox. So are amoebas. I don’t think fitting the technical definition of “being alive” constitutes a separate life in the sense we’re discussing. (Unless, of course, you’re arguing for the rights of those lives as well.)

            And another problem with your theory is that if it’s so separate from the woman, then why shouldn’t she have every right to remove a foreign entity from her body?

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            With every word you type, you only further prove your biological illiteracy.

            Seriously, you really have no conception of the difference between organic matter and live human organisms?

            Shelly, the bottom line is that you’re ignorant because you want to be. You deliberately avoid educating yourself about embryology because protecting abortion is more important to you than morality or truth.

          • Shelley

            Well,humans ARE “living organicmaterial”, in caseyou hadn’t noticed. And you have yetto explain what givesyou power over someoneelse’s person. 

            Also, since you obviously have very little science educationyourself, I ‘m not sure what makesyou think you evenknowwhat you’re talking about. I knowlots of scientists (like people who work in lab) and they prettty much all agree with mypositionhere.

          • Babylover

            Calvin is absolutely right. As biology (biology being the study of LIFE) points out, an individual is a completely different entity from the mother and the father at the moment of conception, due to the new DNA formed by the haploid cells of both parents. It is not part of the mother, and it is nothing like a tumor, because again, biology teaches that tumors don’t know when to stop growing; babies do.

            Societies definition of age is irrelevant in the determination of life.

          • ReaderAt2046

            Probably not, because I’m pretty sure that the law stipulates that you have to be 21 years old counting from birth.

            And the reason we count from birth instead of from conception is the same reason we draw current flowing from the positive side of the battery to the negative: it’s a lot simpler. For a long time, and quite often even now, it was impossible to determine exactly when someone was conceived. Birth is a lot easier to record.

    • Elise77

       She behaved like an impudent child. Thus the punishment. Why does it only matter that men thought her comment to be deliberately crass? I’m a woman and I think she was crass also. Not to mention stupid. She knows full well (as do you) that the subject was not her vagina (or even her uterus) but a hypothetical child for whose hypothetical life she would hypothetically be responsible. I don’t care about her vagina. I care about the child whose butchery she’d sanction.

      The female victimhood/”War on Women” schtick is getting tired. Women don’t need the right to murder their offspring in order to achieve “equality.” If they do, that suggests they’re inherently UNequal as it stands. Men don’t have the “Constitutional” right to kill another human being for their convenience. Why should you?

      Get over yourself.

  • Matthias

    For once the government intruding into things is a “bad thing” to these people… of course, this bill is crafted by misogynistic women-haters who probably are just bitter because they could never attract women in the first place (they’re probably homophobes too) who are putting this bill together just to be mean to women and intrude into their private lives. Seriously? Is that the best you can come up with people? Further evidence that the pro-choice crowd cannot face the claims made by the Pro-life movement, and resorts to desperate measures to totally distract the argument from the main issue.

    • Anonymous

      Yeah, I’ve always found it funny that conservatives want smaller government and fewer regulations…except of course, when it comes to a woman’s body. Let’s regulate the heck out of THAT.

      • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

        I know this is a popular bumper-sticker sentiment for sheep primarily interested in looking clever at parties, but it’s always been one of the Left’s lamest and most substance-free.

        The alleged inconsistency it supposedly calls out is completely nonexistent. As anyone who’s spent…oh, five minutes familiarizing themselves with the abortion debate knows, protecting unborn babies’ right to life falls squarely within the scope of government’s just purpose.

        A woman’s body is no more regulated by abortion bans than a man’s body is by laws against assault. And besides, banning abortion constitutes a grand total of ONE “regulation” – a far cry from “regulate the heck out of.”

        • Anonymous

          Really? In not assaulting someone, does a man have to completely relinquish control of his body for nine months? Nine months that often consist of illness, discomfort, depression, and all of the other nasty effects pregnancy can have? And then have his body, in many cases, permanently plagued by lasting problems such as incontinence and hemorrhoids for the rest of his life? I must have missed that study!  

          And right now, there are a bunch of regulations restricting abortion and access to contraceptives. Reducing that to one even more strict regulation wouldn’t exactly be an improvement, and you know that banning abortion wouldn’t be one simple regulation–unless, of course, you have no interest in saving the life of the woman. And then you have to define what it means when the woman’s life is “at risk” (for example, if she would commit suicide due to the unwanted pregnancy). And you have to come up with sentences for providers and women who defy the ban as well. Lots of regulations.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Assault is infringement against a victim’s rights. Abortion is infringement against a victim’s rights. Laws against both are rooted in the same principle. This is not complicated.

            So discomfort and depression are now valid justifications for homicide? Even when it’s not even the baby’s actions, but mere EXISTENCE that cause them?

            There being multiple regulations on one procedure simply does not constitute “regulating the heck out of” women’s bodies – at least, not in a world where words mean something. And I’m mighty curious as to how you’re using the term “access” regarding contraception….

            Over the years, I’ve come to develop very low expectations from murder-apologist commentary that hides behind anonymity. And this thread is a shining example of why.

          • Anonymous

            If someone is violating your body, you have the right to defend yourself. Then the “assault” would be justified. And in case you hadn’t noticed, a fetus doesn’t actually have legal rights that can be violated like an actual assault victim would. And on that last note–really? You’re surprised that I don’t want to use my name after what has happened to those who disagree with you people? That’s not exactly a good reason to discount someone’s arguments. Would it be better if I made up a name? And you know, I have my own very low expectations of people who place the rights of a sentient woman below those of something that can’t even think or feel pain. 

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            “If someone is violating your body, you have the right to defend yourself.”

            Yeah, but the baby isn’t the one doing the violating.

            “a fetus doesn’t actually have legal rights that can be violated”

            Um, whether he/she SHOULD have legal rights is the debate, genius. As a human being, the fetus does have *natural* rights.

            “You’re surprised that I don’t want to use my name after what has happened to those who disagree with you people?”

            I’m just noting that people tend to behave in a less careful or scrupulous manner when they know their behavior will never affect their reputation among those who know them in real life.

            “people who place the rights of a sentient woman below those of something that can’t even think or feel pain.”

            Equal to, not below. And if you’re going to argue that developmental stage is what makes the latter less worthy of protection, then it’s up to you to explain what makes that standard moral.

          • Rebecca Downs

            I’m sorry to jump in, but I kind of have to be like um, where have you been here? There is plenty of scientific evidence that has come forth that the unborn *can* feel pain. Many states have laws banning abortion after the 20th week because of this,,, 

  • just Runner

    “They said it: abortion is the same as death after birth.”

    No. They didn’t. Read it again. This time read it in English, and don’t put your spin on it.

    • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

      What part of “proceeding to the same result as an abortion” don’t you understand?

      • just Runner

        Yes. I read it. I understand you like your spin. Having the same RESULT as something does NOT the same thing make. Don’t you understand?

        • Solntsye

          So which seems more heinous? The result of death by dying naturally, or the result of death at the hand of a human?

        • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

          I understand you’re trying to fabricate inaccuracies on the periphery of the debate, because deep down you know you can’t win on the issue’s core merits. Nancy’s point was clear.