Spot the manipulation
One of my favorite tweeters for the other side is RabblePro-Choice. She’s like a wild-eyed pro-abort terrier.
Last week Rabble went after pro-lifer marylikesbagles, who had posted the following video with the invitation, “Everyone who believes in abortion should watch this video. It’s only 30 seconds anyways.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uyb-9_1dD50[/youtube]
Apparently Rabble thought all the hyperbolic use of pro-“choice” euphemisms in the video is really the way the world should be. I’m not sure Rabble even understood the point of the video, which is that if an offspring of the species homosapien is wanted she’s called a “baby” and if unwanted she’s called any number of nonhuman terms. Actually, I’m not sure I understand what all Rabble was mad about. Maybe you do?…
I’m embarrassed for you.
Calling it a baby is not biologically accurate. Don’t act like the anti-choice side doesn’t use manipulative language. Calling it a baby is not only inaccurate, it’s manipulative and you f**ing know it.
People who get abortions don’t go around throwing themselves baby showers or nesting up their nurseries. This whole “ad” is an exercise in “spot the manipulation”, ESPECIALLY with all of the visibly pregnant women in it. Most people aren’t even showing when the majority of abortions are performed.
Love,
Rabble
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
The visible part is the rub – in a world where people refuse to see beyond what is right in front of them, an early pregnancy, which is not noticeably visible might as well not even exist.
This is a failure of our culture, our educational system, and a collapse of western civilization. For the majority of Americans, philosophy is meaningless blather and the only thing that matters is the material and material possessions.
God help us all.
Um okay Rabble. Women who are choosing abortion don’t get baby showers. Okay. THats your argument? And the woman who has an abortion is carrying a different being than a woman who has a baby shower? The woman who has an abortion is carrying a fish? maybe a parasite? But the woman who has a baby shower is carrying a baby?
The utter delusion of the pro-abortion mindset is on display here folks. Gawk at Rabble’s brain blockage while you can. *Smacks head against computer*
I guess since I had a baby shower two weeks ago I am carrying a baby? If I hadn’t had one I would be carrying what… tissue?
The 33 week male baby kicking in my womb isn’t a baby after all? So those arms, legs, face, beating heart and those adorable tootsies I saw on ultrasound at 20 weeks was a figment of my imagination? Maybe the ultrasound tech was manipulating me?
So Rabble is angry with our term “baby,” a term that has been used for who-knows-how-long. Because apparently, saying “baby” is manipulative and incorrect?
Next time I see a toddler, I’ll compliment the parents on what an adorable homo sapiens they allowed to be born. Yep.
Because using any term for a human other than the scientific definition would be manipulative and incorrect. In that case, maybe I’ll just start calling my husband, “Male Homo Sapien.” ;)
And Susan. right on. What a disturbing thought. How narrow-minded have we become?
My clump of tissue is coming out this Sunday!!! I can’t wait to meet her in person. She is definitely very active and yes, she has arms and legs and fingers and fingernails and the cutest fat cheeks. Please keep all of us, my family, my doctor, the attendants, the anesthesiologist, everyone in your prayers on Sunday morning.
God bless,
Cristina
“and you f**ing know it.”
Why do so many people who support legalized abortion have trouble expressing themselves like normal grown-ups?
At any rate, the truth will set you free, but it will make you angry first. Sounds like rabble is at the angry stage.
Love seeing moronic prochoice quotes highlighted on other blogs. May the movemenb spread far and wide :) hilarious video too.
Awwww… congrats Christina on your product of conception! I hope everything goes well for you on Sunday when personhood is conferred on your fetal tissue!
lol – yes, on Sunday your little female Homo Sapien will officially come into the “community of humans” as the long lost Duck so eloquently stated! Congrats and prayers coming your way. :)
God bless you and your little one, Cristina. Will keep you (all) in my prayers. To be born on a Sunday..what a BLESSED baby! ;)
So should we start insisting a pregnant woman only be called a gravida? It is, after all, the scientific term.
Apparently “Rabble” is a combination of “rabid” and “babble” ;)
That video is fantastic. I love everything about it: The cake, the signage, the other women, and the gal singing to her “blob of tissue.”
Rabble and her delussional co-horts just can’t STAND the truth.
Pamela,
Careful. You don’t want to rouse her. There’s a name for that too.
You folks love science. The scientific term for what’s inside a pregnant woman is fetus – something that you have build a cult around. The pro-life rosary, with fetuses for beads, is prima facie evidence of fetus fetishism. Just when I thought I had seen it all (fetus necklaces worn by old men protesting outside Planned Parenthood).
Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes!!! We are very excited!
God bless,
Cristina
PS- the parasite and I are doing well!
CC, a human fetus is a baby. Aren’t you old enough to know that!!?
Cristina–so glad about y9our fetus!! How amazing to welcome the little product of conception on Sunday!! I guess between now and then, it will be gathering all of its blobs of cells together to make it more human-like so it can be born and be a sentient being!! How cool for it and you!!
Blessings to you and it!
Call it for what it is: hate speech against the unborn.
@Pamela: To be fair, “rabble” is a real word, neither made up nor misspelled.
…Of course, the definition of said word essentially comes to, “a large mob” with connotative meanings that the members of said mob are unwashed and uneducated. Which is a very accurate word, I feel, but not the word I would’ve expected a proponent of abortion to use to describe their own side.
Pro-choice folks always seem so angry. They’re either screaming senseless stuff or call me a misogynist.
Maybe we should all start using ‘child’ instead of ‘baby’. After all the traditional, and still recognized name for pregnancy is “with child”. No one really calls it “with baby”. ;)
Moreover you never hear all these “must call it by the proper medical term” object to: toddler, teenager, young adult, or mature adult. Those are all general terms for loose ages, just like ‘baby’. I’ve yet to hear a pro-abortionist state “pubescent and post-pubescent minors should be allowed to abort without parental permission”. How incredibly disengenous of them to use the emotionally charged, societally normal term ‘teenager’ to tug at our heartstrings when they are really talking about pubescent and post pubescent minors!
omg cc….where on earth did you get a college degree? you need a refund. im serious! how can you call yourself an educated woman when you dont know that fetus also means baby? i live near one of the best hospitals in the world. the Cleveland Clinic. celebrities flock there for surgery. Robin Willams had open heart surgery there. these doctors say baby and fetus all the time. these docs are top notch. i believe them. u dont know jack cc.
Blaise! I have a son named Blaise! He’s 12. Interestingly, I used to think he might be a secret misogynist, but his father and I quickly cleared that up. LOL!
Heather, CC got her college degree so she could have an abortion.
lol. You are so right Jespren! Teenager is NOT a scientific term! How dare they use it and be so manipulative?
LOL I’m embarrassed for RABBLE.
Fetus isn’t even REALLY a scientific term. Meaning “little one” it just means a smaller baby. Pro-aborts shouldn’t like the word fetus, either, in that case.
Doctors may use it – but so do many pro-lifers. It’s just another word for a baby at a different stage in life. It doesn’t go against the pro-life argument!
“Contents of the uterus” all that crap is just STUPID, NOT scientific, it is manipulative, noninclusive, and just sounds stupid when put in “real life” non-abortive situations.
I heard Jewels Green speak last week. She said when she worked in the clinic they were not allowed to say “fetus” because even that made the baby sound too human. So they used “product of conception” and “uterine contents” just like this video portrayed. They didn’t want the woman conjuring up any humanoid and living being in their heads and fetus hit too close to child.
The word “fetus” hit too close to the child, when all they really want to do is hit the child and get it over with.
yeah courtnay…..uuuuummmmm thats a little odd to me too. cc said her period was a little late so without confirmation of pregnancy she shot air into her vagina. cart before the horse…ya know!??? wouldnt an educated smart woman confirm pregnancy first? it sounds like mental illness to me. cc claimed a heavy period followed. i just had an early period. as cc says…big whoop. i usually start on the 9th. i can only conclude that thats all cc had…..a heavy period. she was never pregnant.
She ‘shot air into her vagina’ talk about stupid-great way to kill a woman. Stupid, and deadly.
if an offspring of the species homosapien is wanted she’s called a “baby” and if unwanted she’s called any number of nonhuman terms.
This is vastly far from necessarily true. Plenty of people with wanted pregnancies are medically correct about things and say “embryo” and “fetus,” for example, while lots of people with unwanted pregnancies and lots of people who have abortions say “baby.”
I called my son “Cletus The Fetus” when I was pregnant with him. But I also know that fetus = gestating human being, no different than referring to myself as “Linda The Adult”. I did decide not to call him “Cletus” post-birth, however.
But calling another living human being the “contents” of wherever they are to rationalize killing them is just sick. Saying, “The apartment contents were terminated.” doesn’t make it ok to kill the occupants!
Doug, you must be hitting the pipe again. I have NEVER EVER IN A THOUSAND YEATS EVER heard a pregnant woman say, “That fetus is kicking like crazy!!!!” or “I got to hear the embryo’s heart beat for the first time”. COME ON.
And as if on cue, Doug enters the race (in which he supposedly has no dog, although I highly doubt that) and rehashes the same tired arguments and ridiculousness as always, even insinuating that “plenty” of his buddies and their wives/girlfriends had “fetus showers,” so that must be the norm.
Heh. And to think, all this entertainment is free!!
Courtnay and Kel, as 100% against abortion (and currently in my 3rd pregnancy) it isn’t all *that* unusual to hear the clinical term in a clinical setting when refering to a pregnancy. When talking to doctors or staff it’s not unusual to hear fetus/fetal used interchangable with baby. Like ‘we can check the fetal heartbeat now. You’re 18 weeks so we expect your baby to have a heartrate of X. Yep, the fetus has a good strong heart beat’. I’ve also heard women use the terms to describe what stage of pregnancy they are in like ‘my baby is a fetus this week’. When you are comfortable with biology there isn’t a real need to avoid the term, and some women very much use clinical terms, at least on occassion, in reference to their very much wanted pregnancy. (Just like some parents refer to a newborn as a neonate, which I and many other NICU moms did to differentiate between those long-term NICU babies and the ones who were just arrived) it’s no more insulting to call a baby a fetus (during the fetal period) than it is to call a teenager an adolescent. It’s just usually reserved for more clinical discusions.
In a clinic setting, no you’ll hear it – but with your friends and family? A “Fetus Shower” etc? Doesn’t really happen. Maybe a few people but not anywhere near even close to being a majority.
Yes, jespren, I totally understand what you are saying, as far as a clinical setting goes. I was talking about an expectant mom’s vernacular. I just have never heard a wanted baby designated as a fetus. But you’re right: once you know the meaning of the word, you do not need to be afraid of the language.
Do you remember Duck? She LOVED the word fetus. In fact, it was really only the word that kept her from realizing the humanity of the unborn. As long as she had that word, and not “baby”, the killing was all good.
Jespren, I actually didn’t mention doctors whatsoever in my post, so were you meaning to include me??
Since I’ve had 3 children, I have definitely heard the term “fetal heartbeat” though my doctor didn’t call my babies “fetuses.” I would completely expect to hear that in a medical setting, however.
In your description of a woman using the term “fetus,” you stated they would say “my baby is a fetus this week.” “My baby” is a “fetus” this week. I would expect to hear something like this, but it’s not meant to dehumanize. It is used to describe the move from the embryonic to the fetal stage, a milestone in everyone’s human development.
But I’ve truly never known any woman who walked around referring to her baby as “my fetus” or “the fetus.” “Fetal heartbeat,” yes. “My fetus,” no.
The only time I’d view calling a child a “fetus” insulting is when one is attempting to say that because the human child is merely a “fetus” that it is less human than a neonate.
Suddenly becoming able to kill another human because you chose to redefine them entirely – not so good. This is what people like Doug, CC, and others do when they choose to use this language. Their posts make that abundantly clear.
Xalisae wrote:
Saying, “The apartment contents were terminated.” doesn’t make it ok to kill the occupants!
:) Keep reminding me: I need to stop at your place and get tutoring on how to make knock-down points like that in less than 15 words! (Or, in less than 500+ words, in my case…)
I’ll echo some of the comments: the only “gripe” I have with the term “fetus” (which is a legitimate term) is the fact that abortion-tolerant people use/used it specifically for the purpose of de-humanising the unborn child, for the purpose of making it socially/emotionally easier to kill that child (and to promote social machinery which would perpetuate the killing of such children). Had the culture of death never started its bloody rampage against the unborn, I seriously doubt that any life-respecting person would have batted an eye at the term.
@Amber, “contents of the uterus” just takes the cake! Have you ever gone on Planned Butcherhood’s website and watched that 4 or 5 min. abortion video w/ the soft lulling music in the background? The doctor, nurse practitioner or whatever she is even says this! LOL
The contents of my uterus has been kicking up quite a storm today!
Alice says:
February 7, 2012 at 9:16 am
@Pamela: To be fair, “rabble” is a real word, neither made up nor misspelled.
Yes, I know, Alice…I was being facetious.
Thank you, Paladin!
I’ll ask you for pointers on how to express myself for eloquently, and we’ll call it an even trade. ;)
That’s why I’ve said before that “fetus” is THEIR (pro-aborts) word. They use it to de-humanize the pre-born baby.
I’ve actually seen some of them on television shouting “it’s not a baby-it’s a fetus!”
uuuhhh…right. Really surprised that they weren’t shouting “It’s not a baby- it’s contents of the uterus!”
Also the really dumb “Keep your rosaries off my ovaries”. Well…a BABY is NOT your ovary. They want to keep abortion “between a woman and her doctor”, yet they want us (the “public”) to pay for the killing of THEIR children?
“Keep your uterus out of my wallet”!
Sorry my thoughts are so RANDOM today. ;)
Congrats Cristine! How fortuante that you got to choose to give birth rather than be forced to abort.
Sadly you don’t want over women to make that choice for themselves :(
Rabble stating that if a woman wants the pregnancy = baby, vs a woman who wants an abortion = fetus, allows the woman to again determine decisions about her own body and life.
I’m prochoice because I want to be able to tell my kid(s) that I wanted them, not because I was forced too.
This is vastly far from necessarily true. Plenty of people with wanted pregnancies are medically correct about things and say “embryo” and “fetus,” for example, while lots of people with unwanted pregnancies and lots of people who have abortions say “baby.” I think then, that Rabble would call those people who have had abortions as manipulative and inaccurate then for saying the word Baby. Even when you have mentioned that ’embryo and fetus’ as medically correct terms for ‘baby’.
I’m prochoice because I want to be able to tell my kid(s) that I wanted them, not because I was forced too.
I’m pro-life because I want my children to know that their lives have ALWAYS been worthy of legal protection under the law regardless of how I felt at any time in my life. I want my children to know that they have inherent worth that deserves respect from EVERYONE, themselves included. I want my children to know that their lives are more important than what I happen to want for myself in life at any given time (today I want a smaller SUV, but maybe in a couple years I’ll be looking at a hybrid…do I want my kids to think that their lives are no more significant than an object I might happen to fancy at a certain point in time?). I want my children to know that my love for them is UNCONDITIONAL-there is no event or circumstance that would make me see their lives as nothing more than optional for me.
Sorry, Mich. Not just MY kids are that important, either. EVERY CHILD IS!
Mich-either who Sydney is carrying is a baby or it’s not. Humanness is not conferrred upon a fetus becuase of wantedness. The only reason your kids are alive is because you wanted them?? How about carrying them to term because that’s the right thing to do, and just because you can doesn’t mean you ought to?
You can have ALL the choices you want, and if you want to mate like bunnies, GO FOR IT.
But once the baby’s here, he’s here. Children have their own worth, dignity and meaning aside from what their parents assign them.
God help us.
Until they get knocked up – then a potential life is more important than them.
If you need society/the law to tell your kids you love them and they matter, then you’re doing it wrong.
No, Mich, he/she is a life already. Why can’t you pro-aborts admit this? He/she is a life with potential.
Mich, if you hang around on this board long enough (and I hope you will), you will find that we care about life from conception til death. There are lots of women here who volunteer and give tirelessly to women in all kinds of crisis. You have heard a lot of mistruths about us, and us caring only about the “potential life” is 100% wrong. Many of us here are mothers. I myself have 3 children. We know what life costs, and we know how precious it is/ What you and I are disagreeing about is WHEN it becomes precious. We say always.
Your second statement? I couldn’t agree more. But something has gone wrong, very much so, and there are some women who have bought the lie that killing is liberation. Ask Carla, one of the moderators here, how her abortion liberated her.
Don’t you believe the lies either.
Until they get knocked up – then a potential life is more important than them.
1.) “Potential life” would be spermatozoa and ovum. No one here is arguing that those potential lives are more important than living human beings. 2.) Once a woman is “knocked up”, she is carrying another human being-her child-within her, and that ACTUAL LIFE is EQUALLY important to her own. 3.) Boy, it really shows someone cares about their kids if they tell them that when they were carrying them they were “knocked up”, and that their lives back then didn’t matter because they were “potential lives” (it also shows a profound lack of biological knowledge).
If you need society/the law to tell your kids you love them and they matter, then you’re doing it wrong.
I don’t need society/the law to tell my kids what they already know because not only have I shown it to them, but I continually show them and instruct them so by our fight to protect all children from the point of conception. I do, however, need society/the law to SHOW them that their lives and all children’s lives matter by protecting them by law, simply because that is the right thing to do.
Mich wrote:
Congrats Cristine! How fortuante that you got to choose to give birth rather than be forced to abort.
Er… you succeded in getting about 50% of that correct, friend: the birth of her child is worthy of congratulations, and it was exceedingly good that she was not forced to kill her child by abortion (as would likely have been the case in China, etc.). Beyond that, you veered into the realm of the bizarre.
Sadly you don’t want over women to make that choice for themselves :(
(I assume you meant “other”?)
Perhaps this will help you understand our position a bit more: do you believe that a woman (or a man) should be morally and legally free to make a “choice” to kill her already-born children, if a sufficiently significant hardship arises (e.g. financial, emotional, etc.)?
Rabble stating that if a woman wants the pregnancy = baby, vs a woman who wants an abortion = fetus, allows the woman to again determine decisions about her own body and life.
That’s somewhat akin to saying that “white man wants black slaves = black man is non-human”; do you really suppose that one man’s wish can change reality (i.e. the intrinsic value of the life of a black man) like that, simply because you find it emotionally/politically expedient or convenient?
I’m prochoice because I want to be able to tell my kid(s) that I wanted them, not because I was forced too.
(*sigh*) The problems with this statement are legion, but here are only a few:
1) In order for it to be true, you’d have to assume that “abortion not allowed” = “impossible for mother to want child”, which is ridiculous.
2) Your example has no parameters which need to end at birth; could not any mother or father use that (bizarre) reasoning with any born children, even if they are school-age, teen-agers, or even adults? “I wish it were legal for me to dismember or disembowel you in your sleep; that way, my free choice not to do that would finally allow me to prove my love for you, and prove that I actually wanted you! What a burden these anti-choice homicide laws are! Get your juries off my ovaries!” A lack of an intention to kill your children is a bare MINIMUM for good parenthood, you know… not the pinnacle of parenthood.
3) Similar to #2: that sort of grotesque principle would not be restricted to the murder of children (and the “unreasonable legal restrictions against it”); by that same principle, a man should yearn to have all anti-rape laws repealed, so that he could finally prove that he values the date whom he (for whatever reason) declines to rape. Have some sense!
so mitch youre just sayin that if you want your kids have them and be happy BUT if you make em and dont want them just kill them and throw them away. niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiice!
It is only alive if it’s inside me to a certain point. Until then, it needs another being to live. So no, its not comparable to a toddler, to a freshly born baby, to a black man. Its less that a spidar in my house – that at least can function on its own.
The other day a girl od on some sleep pills. She came into my friend’s ER and said she did it because she was trying to kill the fetus in her. That’s what you people are trying to curse others with. The abortions won’t stop just because they’re illegal. Having an abortion is safer than giving birth.
I can’t believe I live in a world where people think a fetus who can’t function is comparable to a child.
Tell me, if there was a room of 20 fertizled embryos and a room of 10 kids, both were on fire, which one would you try to save first?
I don’t know how you can even read this person’s tweets. I personally can’t stand that degree of “radical” for even a second. Like those annoying kids that shot spitballs in class, didn’t learn a thing, and grew up with just enough knowledge to set up a Twitter account and a blog.
Allow me to translate this from “radical” to plain English:
“I’m embarrassed for you.”
Translation: I’m not really embarrassed, I just disagree with the video and because I’m too radical to just come out and admit it plainly, I would rather just grab your attention with a little bit of condescending drammmmma!
“Calling it a baby is not biologically accurate.”
Translation: I’m a HUGE science fan! If I had it my way, we would call a tomato “Solanum lycopersicum” since it’s much more accurate. Much, much more biologically accurate. I like solanum lycopersicum, you like tomato. I like Solanum tuberosum L., you like potato…
Potato, Solanum tuberosum L., tomato, Solanum lycopersicum! Let’s call the whole thing off!
“Don’t act like the anti-choice side doesn’t use manipulative language. Calling it a baby is not only inaccurate, it’s manipulative and you f**ing know it.”
Translation: Ok, I have something to say that I really need you all to understand (desperately) and I’m going to sound a little angry / rock star here so I can be sure that it makes it’s way into all you religious people’s non-scientific brains. You people are bible thumpers ok? And you don’t get to define the English language, at least not according to me. Only healthcare professionals are allowed to do that. Got it? Regular folk = STOP what you’re doing. Your language is hurting the feelings of people who decide to abort their child (oh **** I just did it didn’t I?)
“People who get abortions don’t go around throwing themselves baby showers or nesting up their nurseries.”
Translation: Look, not every pregnant lady is happy and thrilled she’s pregnant so you can’t just juxtapose your happy ideals of pregnancy with abortion speak. It’s just not reality. The reality is that most women who have abortions will probably never wind up at some frilly baby shower of a friend…or listening to the pregnant lady in the office talk about what color she picked out for junior’s nursery. And they’ll probably never ever question the differnce between the fetus in [insert random friend here’s] belly and the one they “terminated” the year before. So please…let the happy pregnant ladies keep their “non-scientific” terms to throw around at their baby showers (that they threw for themselves). We’re fine calling them blobs of tissue. No, scratch that…let’s call all unborn blobs of tissue blobs of tissue.
“This whole “ad” is an exercise in “spot the manipulation”, ESPECIALLY with all of the visibly pregnant women in it. Most people aren’t even showing when the majority of abortions are performed.”
Translation: Get your facts straight people. When I say “majority” I really mean that there are absolutely NO abortions performed on women who are visibly pregnant. Because seriously, I just think that would be horrific and most would agree so I think it’s best that we ignore that it even takes place. And for some reason I just don’t agree that the video’s intent was to shed light on the fact that the abortion industry supports the “termination” of pregnancies that are showing. That just doesn’t really resonate with me.
THE END (keep your rosaries out of my ovaries and all that good stuff)
Mich, you can’t blame the pro-life movement for what a girl chose to inflict upon herself and her baby. Shouldn’t her exercise of what choicers like to refer to as personal bodily autonomy make you glad instead of mad? I sincerely hope that she makes a full recovery and doesn’t try anything of the sort again, and I hope her child is okay too (doubtful, but I can hope).
“The abortions won’t stop just because they’re illegal.”
Rape and slavery haven’t stopped just because they’re illegal, either. You should legalize rape clinics so we can make rape safer!
“Having an abortion is safer than giving birth.”
This one is so old……if abortion is so much safer than giving birth, then why haven’t I died or suffered serious complications from childbirth yet? Or my mom? Or my mother-in-law? Or my grandmothers? Or my midwives and all of their patients? Or every woman that I know who is a mother (and I know very many of them)? You are assuming what you have not proven.
“I can’t believe I live in a world where people think a fetus who can’t function is comparable to a child.”
Having biased beliefs against a particular group of human beings (in your case, age is the determining factor) must make it difficult for you to accept. Fetuses do function, they function precisely as nature intended them to: kicking, rolling, growing, sucking their thumbs, listening, dreaming, digesting, pooping….fetuses are very functional little human beings! As long as science and technology continue to affirm the humanity of the prenatal child, I won’t be altering my beliefs anytime soon! :-)
http://www.ehd.org/movies.php?mov_id=51
“Tell me, if there was a room of 20 fertizled embryos and a room of 10 kids, both were on fire, which one would you try to save first?”
First off, there is no such thing as a fertizled embryo. Nor is there such a thing as non-fertilized embryo. But I digress. This is a good question for a fire fighter. Better yet, a TEAM of firefighters (because trying to run into a burning building by yourself is a stupid and deadly thing to do). One, because they are trained for a multitude of scenarios and environments. Two, because they have to make tough calls like this every time there are lives in danger: and they can’t always get everybody out, despite their best efforts (remember 9/11). Just because people don’t get rescued in time does not make them less human or less valued than the ones who were rescued and survived. You may as well be asking me whether I would save a room full of coma patients or a room full of newborn patients first.
“I can’t believe I live in a world where people think a fetus who can’t function is comparable to a child.” Your assertion that it isn’t a child because it is a fetus is only true if ‘child’ is only a name for a developmental stage.
As a 24 year old, I am not in a developmental stage known as childhood or infancy either but that does not stop me from being MY MOTHER’S CHILD because I am her offspring, a definition which is not development based.
Its interesting, too, that according to pro-choicers the qualification for personhood is ‘rationality’ but according to you I am still a (I quote) “person” and “live in the world” whilst displaying such irrationality!
Rachel, you nailed it. Where were you when I had term papers to write?
Mich wrote, in reply (I assume) to my comment:
It is only alive if it’s inside me to a certain point.
(??) Could you re-word that? It’s hard to decipher your clear meaning… not only because the syntax is a bit muddled, but because you seem to be suggesting that a live embryo/fetus/unborn human offspring is “not alive” at certain points in a pregnancy… which seems to be rather a flat self-contradiction, to me.
Until then, it needs another being to live.
So do you, friend… unless you happen to be, for example, an utterly self-sufficient Amish farmer (who raises every last bit of food, cuts every last bit of needed wood, has a foundry in which you forge your own nails and pour your metal wheels, refine your own kerosene, etc.) who happens to have internet access?
So no, its not comparable to a toddler, to a freshly born baby, to a black man.
I can only wonder why you would think so.
Its less that a spidar in my house – that at least can function on its own.
Ah. So: if you become bed-ridden with a severe fever, your own worth would be “less than that of an ambulatory spider”? Again: have some sense! This standard (though it doesn’t seem coherent enough even to merit that name) of yours is haphazard, incoherent, and utterly worthless.
The other day a girl od on some sleep pills. She came into my friend’s ER and said she did it because she was trying to kill the fetus in her. That’s what you people are trying to curse others with.
(??) You’re saying that “we people” (pro-lifers, I assume?) are trying to curse people with a mental illness which drives a woman to infanticide? Come, now… even you can’t be convinced by that sort of talk!
The abortions won’t stop just because they’re illegal.
Nor will rapes, murders of college students, human trafficking, etc., I’m afraid; but at least we will be taking efforts to denounce and punish those who presume to partake of such crimes, and discourage many from doing so, yes?
Having an abortion is safer than giving birth.
This is utter, arrant nonsense.
I can’t believe I live in a world where people think a fetus who can’t function is comparable to a child.
That’s an interesting fact about your psyche, I’m sure… but surely you know that this is mere emotion-based screed, which any supporter of any argument could use for any cause, whatsoever? “I can’t believe I live in a world where those who wish to set off hand-grenades in crowded nursery schools are denied the freedom to do so! Harrumph!”
Tell me, if there was a room of 20 fertizled embryos and a room of 10 kids, both were on fire, which one would you try to save first?
(*sigh*) I suppose I could reverse the scene, and ask which YOU would save first: an ambulatory toddler, or a toddler with cerebral palsy who’s strapped to a non-functional motorised wheel-chair? Would you save a baby first, or an 80-year-old man? The question serves no purpose at all, save as rhetorical hand-waving and as a raw appeal to the gallery. (Just to satisfy your curiosity: I don’t see why efforts couldn’t be made to save both; and if the embryos (note: there’s no such thing as a “fertilised embryo”–fertilised EGG, yes) were in a container light enough to carry (as opposed to a locked freezer or cylinder of liquid nitrogen), I would certainly grab them at the same time that I “herded” the kids to safety.)
BRAVO RACHEL!! Brilliant translations – thanks for the humor :)
:) Cheri, I unwittingly re-treaded the paths that you’d already covered nicely! So much for my awareness of my surroundings, this morning…
Rachel, you had me laughing like a fool, with your comments! I’m seriously out-classed in the “pithy rejoinder” category, on this thread; I’m tempted to step back and simply enjoy these…
I think we’re being punk’d.
Ya’ll are welcome. Anytime! :)
Hehe, it’s all good, Paladin! It just goes to show how predictably refutable pro-choice rhetoric is *sigh*
And I must tip my hat to Rachel, too. LOL! ^_^
X: I called my son “Cletus The Fetus” when I was pregnant with him.
“Cletus” is good. (There are even “Cletus the fetus” products.)
“Festus” is another good one.
Courtnay: Doug, you must be hitting the pipe again. I have NEVER EVER IN A THOUSAND YEATS EVER heard a pregnant woman say, “That fetus is kicking like crazy!!!!” or “I got to hear the embryo’s heart beat for the first time”. COME ON.
No “pipe” here, Courtnay, I get drug-tested all the time.
In that context, I agree with you – most women are going to say “baby” there. That doesn’t negate what I said though, which also involved women with unwanted pregnancies who *do say* “baby.” This was in response to this: “if an offspring of the species homosapien is wanted she’s called a “baby” and if unwanted she’s called any number of nonhuman terms,” which is not true, as stated.
And as if on cue, Doug enters the race (in which he supposedly has no dog, although I highly doubt that) and rehashes the same tired arguments and ridiculousness as always, even insinuating that “plenty” of his buddies and their wives/girlfriends had “fetus showers,” so that must be the norm.
Kel, that’s not it. I was just commenting on an untrue generalization. As to “baby showers – yeah, there, I’d say it’d be very unusual to not say “baby.”
Courtnay and Kel, as 100% against abortion (and currently in my 3rd pregnancy) it isn’t all *that* unusual to hear the clinical term in a clinical setting when refering to a pregnancy. When talking to doctors or staff it’s not unusual to hear fetus/fetal used interchangable with baby. Like ‘we can check the fetal heartbeat now. You’re 18 weeks so we expect your baby to have a heartrate of X. Yep, the fetus has a good strong heart beat’. I’ve also heard women use the terms to describe what stage of pregnancy they are in like ‘my baby is a fetus this week’. When you are comfortable with biology there isn’t a real need to avoid the term, and some women very much use clinical terms, at least on occassion, in reference to their very much wanted pregnancy.
Thank you, Jespren.
Kel: Suddenly becoming able to kill another human because you chose to redefine them entirely – not so good. This is what people like Doug, CC, and others do when they choose to use this language. Their posts make that abundantly clear.
Honestly, Kel, that’s silly. There’s no “redefining.” On the subjective terms – we’re free to use what we want, and as for the strictly-correct medical terms, they’re not at issue.