Pro-life video of the day: My country, my choice
by LauraLoo
The Agenda Project Action Fund presents My Country, My Choice, a video which once again attempts to paint pro-life politicians as “anti-woman.”
The 28 naked women in this video ask American politicians ”If you don’t trust me with my body, why should I trust you with my country?”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeY6gGQZ5_E[/youtube]
Email dailyvid@jillstanek.com with your video suggestions.
[HT: Jill]
Oct.26, 2012 12:00 pm |
Video of the day |
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.
Why can’t these people understand? We trust them fully with THEIR bodies. We trust them that they are capable of making adult, informed decisions involving THEIR bodies, such as when and in what manner to have sex. We trust them to make ‘best for them’ decisions about THEIR bodies, such as if they are able to keep and tend a child or if that child must be given up. What we don’t ‘trust’ is ANYONE’S decision to inflict a horrible death upon SOMEONE else’s body.
What is so hard for them to understand that its not their bodies. Its the unborn body they are going to choose to kill.
The problem is that for an embryo or fetus to survive, the body of the pregnant female is necessary to sustain it. Thus, anti-abortion laws DO impinge in the most radical possible way on what happens to the body of the pregnant female. For the embryo to grow into a fetus and be born, the body of the pregnant female must CARRY and then GIVE BIRTH.
However, it is arguable that this radical use of the female body is justified in a similar way that the bodies of young men are used for front-line infantry combat.
Anti-abortion laws mean that once the woman is pregnant, avoiding this use of her body is similar to draft dodging.
What these women fail to understand is that it’s not just about “me”. Decisions people make can and do affect others.
DeniseNoe, I know this is one of your favorite old saws, and I’m going to try one more time to explain your logic fail.
Parents are required, by natural and legal law, to use their bodies in support of their offspring. An embroy has just as much natural right to use the parent’s body to sustain itself as a 4 day old neonate does, as a 12 year old does, and the parent has just as much of a natural moral requirement to provide such. For most of legal ‘childhood’ the law recognizes that moral requirement that parents use their bodies to sustain their children. The only glaring exception is the 1st 9 months of life. My 2 month old, who is carried in my arms or worn against my body, and has fed on my milk exclusively demands just as much of me, and is given just as much, today as she did 8 months ago. My 4 year old requires the ceaseless effort of myself and my husband (in fact quite a bit *more* support than he did inutero) to keep him safely growing and maturing. It is our natural duty to provide for our offspring. You repeatedly act like the first 9 months is some sort of horrendous burden that is over the moment the child is born. It’s not. There isn’t a smidgen of difference between telling the mother of a 3 month fetus that she must bend her efforts and body to sustain that of her child’s life as there is to telling the mother of a 13 year old that. The state demands that sacrifice, quite justly, morally, and naturally, of parents of older kids, yet in the worst hypocrasy, ignores the same exact duty of the parent of the very young child.
Now society has made allowances for parents who feel they can no longer care properly for their children, they are allowed to give their child over to another that can properly care for them. That doesn’t mean I can simply abandon my 2 year old on the side of the road because it’s inconvenient for me to find someone to take over that duty. That doesn’t mean I can kill my 4 year old because it would be a few days before the social worker will be around to collect him and I want him gone *now*. No, I am both morally, naturally, and legally required to continue to provide for them unless and until I can find another to take that burden. That burden *I* willingly accepted by agreeing to sex that could potentially lead to children and that burden which I naturally assumed the moment that sex *did* lead to a new, unique offspring. We have a moral obligation to require parents to use their bodies to care for their young until their young come of legal age or until another surrogate for that obligation can be found. The age of the child, where that child resides, the level of development of the child, or the health or disabilty of that child should (and ethically doesn’t) not matter one wit to the law.
@ Jespren: You seem to overlook that I made the point that pregnancy can be compared to a kind of “nature’s draft” and anti-abortion laws justified similarly to laws against draft dodging.
Regarding being anti-woman:
“Women are the inferior sex. There’s never been a woman genius.” — Female author Taylor Caldwell.
“All women are dirty. Their insides are like cows.” — Actor Rock Hudson.
“A woman is only a woman but a good cigar is a good smoke.” Author Rudyard Kipling.
“I would rather be with a stupid man than with a clever woman.” Author Barbara Cartland.
DeniseNoe, I’m not overlooking it, it’s a logical failure to compair a violation of a civic duty, dependant upon specific laws of specific nations and having no basis in natural law nor no distinct and automatic ethics, to a parental duty which is based in natural law and is of a specific ethical and moral nature. It’s not only a false comparision it’s completely unneeded. You don’t have to compair parental duty to anything but parental duty. It’s a well known and agreed upon concept fully applicable, relevent, and completely identical.
I fully support people making choices about THEIR OWN bodies. That is why people like Bloomberg annoy me telling people how much popcorn and soda they can consume. If you want to consume carcinogens so that your boyfriend who has made no lifetime commitment can use you sexually so that he can orgasm in you and not create a new human with you…hey, thats YOUR decision. YOU pay for it, okay? But if you do conceive while being short-sighted and irresponsible and selfish I WILL speak out when you try to kill an innocent child for YOUR stupid decisions. Alrighty then.
It all sounds so great and catchy until you realize the actual horror of aboriton.
DeniseNoe:
1) teach that sex is an intense emotionally bonding experience that belongs only in the lifelong relationship between a married couple.
2) teach real world failure rates (which is to say abysmally ineffectual) of contraceptives for both pregnancy and stds along with the real world side effects reported for those contraceptives.
3) teach self control and that children are 100% (yes, even as teens) capable of expressing that control over their emotions and hormones. Actions do not ‘just happen’, they are each willing choices and people are fully capable of making the correct choice that leads to correct actions.
4) destigmatize younger marriages (18-25 range) as the natural age to marry.
5) teach that marriage is the willing and willful bond and contract between a man and a woman and that the lifelong contract and promises made are not only perfectly reasonable to be kept, but *are* to be kept.
6) acknowledge the woman’s natural peak fertility years as the natural time for children and family.
So (insecure) young girls should go out into central park, get naked, and hold signs that say, “get your laws off my body?”
The Obamanation out does itself.
This is why abstinence training goes hand in hand with abortion prevention and nurturing self-worth.
No doubt these would be “victims” could star in Leno’s “jaywalkers” episodes.
Okay – they have bodies – but apparently no brains. Sort of like zombies.
I don’t trust them, or the morons they intend to elect.
PS> My body my choice – ObamaCare put a major end to that argument by imposing a head tax on everyone’s body. For all practical purposes I count that as rape. Your liberty doesn’t surpass mine or anyone else, nor does it surpass anyone’s life.
Jespren: 4) destigmatize younger marriages (18-25 range) as the natural age to marry.
(Denise) This is a main reason for many problems. We have constructed a society that delays marriage. Thus, pregnancies tend to come before marriage or simply sans it.
Part of the problem may be college. People have to delay the time when they are supporting themselves and on their own until they finish 4 years after high school.
We might be a lot better off if people could support themselves — and families — at about age 18.
DeniseNoe, college is definately part of the problem! There is nothing wrong with college, I did 2 years myself, and I won’t object if my kid(s) wish to go. But the notion that college is a necessity or even a preference is truly absurd! Very few jobs require a college education. Want to be a doctor or a lawyer, yeah, college is good, but 90% of the jobs out there have absolutely no need of a college degree, but the hyper and artificially inflated amounts of people who do attend college has made it fashionable for any job to ‘prefer’ if not require a college education. It’s foolishness. And it totally has much to do with people delaying the physiological course of life. This universal push for higher education, like everyone and their dog is going to be a research scientist or a nuclear physicist is destroying whole generations of youth in more than one way. Universal literacy is a great thing. Make sure your populous can pick up a book, from a street map to a tome on history to a astrophysics text is a notable and worthwhile goal. But once that literacy has been obtained people are fully capable of learning, without paying money to sit in a classroom, pretty much anything they want or need to know. Leave college to the sliver of the population that actually needs it, to the jobs which actually require it, and right there you’d fix a whole host of social ills by allowing our young adults to actually get on with being adults at a biologically appropriate time!
@ Jespren: Here we’ve got an area of agreement. One of the main reasons for many problems is the delay of marriage. The perceived “need” for “higher” education contributes a great deal to this delay.
We need to revamp both the concept and the reality of education to promote the possibility that people can marry fairly young.
The comparison of child birth to battle was made to compare the high mortality rate suffered by women in pre-sanitary days to the high death rate of men. Both were dying to advance their nation or people – one by increasing the population, the other by expanding the frontiers or pacifying surrounding threats. My great grandmother died delivering my paternal grandfather, who was an only child since she miscarried her previous attempts. And a Caesarian was a death sentence back then. Now, medical care has advanced to allow survival of mother and child in almost all potential troubles, that no longer holds.
Delay of being able to be self-supporting IS a problem for technological and industrial countries all over the world – Japan, US, Europe. Now you’re required to have $50,000+ in school debt before your first real job, where it used to be men would hire in after high school (where you really learned your basics and were ready for the work force back then), learn on the job and make an income while doing it, many couples lived at home until first baby while being able to save. We ARE now asking people to abnormally delay their families, and all this is the result. Now you get used to having most of your adult life single, once you’re financially ready, it’s established. I think old 50 year marriages lasted because they married young and knew nothing else all their adult lives but working as a unit with each other, and didn’t come into marriage with long histories (including a train of ex-sweethearts to compare the spouse to) without each other.
p.s.: of course Rock Hudson thought women were icky. He was gay, and repulsed by the thought of being romantic with them. And I find that 2 of the 4 anti-woman quotes were by women very telling – I’ve observed that women are harder on women than any “woman hating” mysoginist, and the man hating misandrist to hate everyone around. Woman’s worst enemy in the workplace isn’t the man holding her down, it’s the other women cutting her legs out from under her. And Kipling’s quote is actually a line from the poem “Bethrothed,” which is an awesome account of a man’s argument with his wife over his cigar habit. I’m tired of Bible verses and all sorts of other one-liners given without context nowadays.
Since these women are so entirely fixated on themselves and their own bodies, they desperately need to vote for someone who is concerned about the rest of society and the common good.
The last things they need are political leaders who feed their addictions to self-body worship, but that is whom they will vote for. And if they win, the whole country will continue falling in a glorious blaze of body-worship.
Here would be my question to the “ladies” of the Agenda Project.. If you lack all sense of dignity and intelligence so as to imply that you are naked in public, why should I take your dumb questions seriously?
I am very interested in the pro-life platform. I, too, dislike the concept that people can kill potential life. However, I feel that many of the people on this website are taking a very negative, non-constructive standpoint, more like “anti-abortion” than actually “pro-life.” Instead of simply fighting to end legalized abortion (which will still not eradicate the issue of people aborting their babies due to illegal and unsafe abortions), should we not create preventative measures for women?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I also do not see abstinence-only education as the solution. Teenagers are going to have sex no matter what you teach them, and I know many schools that teach abstinence-only with equal amounts of sex between students than those that don’t. Wouldn’t an equally efficient alternative be providing young, ignorant people with many forms of birth control and contraceptives? Someone said that many forms of birth control can be ineffective, which is true; but if people are well educated on proper usage, I know that condoms for one are effective 98% of the time. That is 98% fewer lives created and potentially harmed.
Personally, I feel that even if abortion were illegal, many children would still be born into dangerous or unfortunate lives. I want to prevent babies who are unloved simply because they are “accidents,” and I think we should try to educate people on how to prevent pregnancies before they are in a committed relationship and ready (fiscally and emotionally) to support a new life.
Abortion is horrific; but as “pro-life,” shouldn’t we try to make positive, constructive efforts to prevent the situations that lead to abortion?
Thanks for your thoughts!
Pamella said: Teenagers are going to have sex no matter what you teach them
It’s this type of mentality that makes abstainence WITH chastity education a tough sell. The idea that teenagers can’t be taught self control is not only degrading to teens, but it is a cop out on the part of others. It gives us all an excuse not to do anything about it.
True, there are some teenagers who will engage in sexual activity no matter what you tell them, or teach them, or offer them…but let’s not lump ALL teenagers together. And let’s certainly NOT give up on them, either. After all, some people learn from their mistakes/experiences.
The thing is, we have to encourage teens to practice self control. Show them the VALUE of their bodies. Put more value on sexual activity and sexuality rather than just a past-time an a way to feel good.
I’ve seen chastity speakers in action. They’re not just saying “avoid sex” they’re saying “Treat sexual activity and each other with respect.” Teens are HUNGRY for respect. They hate being disrespected. So painting the picture that premarital sex is a form of disrespect for oneself and others can touch some of them.
Chastity is given such a stigma in society. As if being chaste means you’re some sort of a prude or have the proverbial “stick up your butt”. Which simply isn’t the case. Those who are chaste recognize sexual activity as made for and meant for marriage. They recognize other people as fellow human beings (and for those who are religious, others made in the image and likeness of God).
Instead EXPECTING teens to just be hormonal basket cases who can’t keep their hands off each other, perhaps we should, as a whole society, start expecting them not to. Yes, hormones are powerful in the teenage years, but there are ways of channeling that energy into productive and proper outlets that don’t mean they’re giving themselves away prematurely (before marriage).
Controlling one’s hormones is NOT easy…and I am certainly NOT trying to make it sound that way…but I also think it’s important kids are taught alternatives to “oh well you’re going to do it anyway…”
I strongly recommend Jason and Crystalina Evert. http://www.chastity.com/node/442
I’ve heard MaryBeth Bonacci speak years ago and read some of her work. She’s pretty good: http://www.reallove.net/index2.asp?CID=1
I don’t remember if she talks much about chastity (it’s been awhile since I looke at her material/resources in depth), but Pam Stenzel says a lot about abstainence: http://pamstenzel.com/Home.aspx
Christopher West doesn’t talk to teens, but he has talked to college-aged people, he does a lot of talks regarding Pope John Paul II’s THE THEOLOGY OF THE BODY (I listened to West’s talk for women, called “Woman: God’s Masterpiece” while I was pregnant, and it made me feel so HONORED, so PRIVILEGED to be a woman!) He has A LOT of great resources: http://www.christopherwest.com/
Pamella says:
October 28, 2012 at 12:04 am
I am very interested in the pro-life platform. I, too, dislike the concept that people can kill potential life. However, I feel that many of the people on this website are taking a very negative, non-constructive standpoint, more like “anti-abortion” than actually “pro-life.” Instead of simply fighting to end legalized abortion (which will still not eradicate the issue of people aborting their babies due to illegal and unsafe abortions), should we not create preventative measures for women?
(Denise) To a large extent, the terms are just, well, terms. The positions are the legalization or criminalization of abortion not “pro-choice” and “pro-life.”
They ARE in fact anti-legal abortion. This is an arguable position from many perspectives. Abortion is unlawful in many countries and was unlawful in the United States for decades.
They don’t believe the unborn are “potential life.” Those who want abortion criminalized tend to believe that a human life exists at conception. Some may put it at another point but they all put it early in the pregnancy.
Science largely supports that view that a human life exists by about the time a woman misses a period and perhaps earlier. One major reason anti-abortion laws were enacted in the first place was that advances in embryology disclosed how early the human unborn are “formed” and have the characteristics of human life.
So this is what Team Obama means when they say Vote with Your Lady Parts.
The video is also somewhat misleading. I’d bet those women are not nude but wearing bathing suits sans shoulder straps.
@mts1: Anti-female statements have been made by men and women, gays and straights. People who want to outlaw abortion are often accused of being misogynist. I like to put forward the truth that misogyny has some good company. The quotes are from a mixed but distinguished bag.
Man haters and women haters is the highest form of SEXISM!!! Down with it!!