Stigginit

The fucking insanity of these asshole idiot hypocrites (each of those slurs being overwhelmingly defensible and perfectly appropriate).

It's exhausting living in their America - would love to secede happily ever after, munch popcorn as they fell into hell Peter Paul Rubens style. Fuckwits

Election; consequence.

This is exactly what Killary would have done. Exactly.

This is some 'Handmaid's Tale' quality bullshit right here.
Don't want unintended pregnancies, give women proper and complete health care!

SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. WHY IS THIS SUCH A DIFFICULT CONCEPT? SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. THIS IS UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

But birth control for Republican lawmakers' mistresses, obviously.

@8: No, it's not. Wikipedia:

The First Amendment which ratified in 1791 states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." However, the phrase "separation of church and state" itself does not appear in the United States Constitution.

Not to worry, women's bodies have a magical way to "shut the whole thing down" (according to that one rocket scientist old dude a year or so back, while discussing pregnancy resulting from rape) so there won't be any unwanted pregnancies. There, potus45 has solved ANOTHER problem. How did we get along without him??!!

You do know you can opt out of your employers health care coverage, right? Enroll in one of the amazing, affordable plans on healthcare.gov.

No one has taken your autonomy concerning healthcare and contraception away. I don't know how this issue gets framed like this. You can still make all the same choices you could before.

@6:

Well, at least you're honest about your unabashed misogyny...

@5 - Sure glad we didn't get burdened with that centrist! Having a pure progressive soul because of that protest vote sure feels good, huh?

@3. Don't like it in America? Go back to your beloved North Korea or Russia. They will happily take care of you there. Otherwise, stop your senseless whining.

@6 I know COMTE is not the brightest bulb or the sharpest tool in the shed judging by this, and his other comments, so it is no surprise that he does not know what sarcasm is. Fucking idiot. Lol

@15. Almost feels as good as watching half a nation of crybabies squirm and whine about everything one ridiculous man does. Hillary lost because you're arrogant, ignorant people. Not because of purity votes. The sum of your assessment of the opposing political party is "Gee whiz, Billy Bob, the gubment is an evil Jewish conspiracy tryna take ma guns and Medicaid away.".

You lost though. All the seats of power in the US are controlled by those dumb hicks. Because they, unlike you, understand their opponents ideology and strategize with that in mind. You got outsmarted by fucking hillbillies, dumbass. What's that make you?

I'll save you the trouble of coming up with a witty retort (I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself)...you're a moment in history that future generations will willfully ignore.

@3 ClaraT: Spot on!
@6: No wonder it's so hard for dumbass Republican men to get laid.
And you reeeallly hate being in the company of educated women, don't you?
@7 treacle and @8: Agreed.
@9: I know, right? Fucking cowardly hypocrites!
@17 muffy: I clearly misunderstood you earlier in a previous comment thread (from last week). Please accept my humblest apologies. I think we actually agree on a lot and I nominate you and @3 Clara T both the winners of this thread.

The upside is that this will mean more people will see the practicality of abortion and realize it's no big deal.

@20: It's always going to be "a big deal" just that it shouldn't be any of the government's business what women do.

@8: However, the Massachusetts Attorney General is joining the ACLU in lawsuits saying it violates federal law.

Raindrop dear, I disagree. I know many women who have had abortions and never looked back. It just gets vilified by a group of religious nitwits and women haters who sentimentalize babies as a way of trying to hold on to their fading positions of power. It's just a surgical procedure to remove a growth. Thankfully, we now have pharmaceutical alternatives to the surgery to make it even more convenient. Of course those same bores who would try to take away birth control try to restrict abortion.

@22. "Growths" don't have the potential to become sentient life. And if you don't "sentimentalize babies", what does that say about you as a person? Humans are biologically designed by evolution to protect and nurture children.

It sounds like you don't value life (they're definitely alive when surgically removed) and potential setience as much as the convenience of an already existing life. I don't either, and support women's rights to full reproductive autonomy, but at least I can frame it honestly. Calling it a growth is scientifically ignorant.

@17 - I hope that narrative is comforting to you somehow. Its a total lie (surprise surprise) but whatever helps you get off I guess.

@23 - Saying things on the internet doesn't make it true, no matter what delusions you and trump might have about its power. Thanks for playing tho!

@25. Fact. Republicans hold a majority in the us congress and senate while also occupying the white house. As for that being comforting...hardly, my overzealous mongoloid friend.

And saying that an embryo isn't a growth, it's a living thing that is capable of becoming sentient if allowed to fully gestate is not factual how??? Break out your biology degree from Wikipedia U and school me up on the wonders of modern science denial. Please. I'm waiting.

Muffy dear, do put a sock in it. Just look around, and at our foreign policy. No one in this country "values life". I'm just a bit more pragmatic about it, especially when it comes to abortion.

Abort early and abort often. When in doubt, cut it out.

Whelp luckily IUDs last longer than presidential terms. Time to pop one in, ladies!

@27 - Here, here!

@27. Sidestep to a different issue when you can't defend it? Just shows you're in denial.

For the record, I agree, abort early, abort often. The less shitty people raising shitty kids, the better.

@10 - There is no free exercise of religion without free exercise of irreligion; establishment has occurred as soon as any one moral ideology is granted preference or supremacy in law. As such, whether or not the words "separation of church and state" appear in the First Amendment is immaterial, as its stated goals cannot be accomplished unless those institutions are separate.

@12 - I'm not sure "affordable" means what you think it means.

@17 - All the seats of power in the US are controlled by those dumb hicks.
Hardly. If you'd been paying attention you'd realize that all the seats of power in the US are controlled by... the rich and wealthy. Who then manipulate the "dumb hicks" with false claims to morality, so that they can win elections and pay back their wealthy friends with cushy government jobs, or taxpayer pork, or the rollback of laws restraining the worst urges of capitalism.

@23 - I don't think most of the people voting for 'abortion AND birth control restrictions' are actually sentient. But that's just me, I could be wrong and they are just venal.

@26 - Donald Trump is not a Republican. He was a registered Democrat for years up until his presidential run. Look it up. He's a TV personality. He's a chameleon with no core values. His only political party affiliation is Money.

@12 - They've just made it harder and more expensive. That's the strategy, "removal" by attrition.

"Growths" don't have the potential to become sentient life.

Oh, sure they do. What is life but a growth, a random mutation of matter (as surely as biodiversity is a function of the random mutation of life)?

And if you don't "sentimentalize babies", what does that say about you as a person?

My guess is that Catalina sentimentalizes the babies she knows just like the rest of us, but unlike some, doesn't waste a lot of sentiment on strange infants (rather like most of you walk around not giving a fuck about the adults you don't know).

In truth, most of us only value humans who fall outside the circle of those we love and those who love us, or those with whom we exchange other units of social or economic value, abstractly.

I'm inclined to protect babies, but then, babies tend to like me, and I'm inclined to protect people who like me. Or the babies of people who like me (or whom I like), when the parents and I exchange more favor than I share with their progeny.

Humans are biologically designed by evolution to protect and nurture children.

There is no evidence that humans are "designed" to do anything. Evolution is not a conscious entity, and isn't concerned with hierarchies.

It sounds like you don't value life (they're definitely alive when surgically removed) and potential se[n]tience as much as the convenience of an already existing life.

Life doesn't have intrinsic value; nothing does. Nature belches up phenomena and quantities, and we as minds place value upon them according to either utility or preference. Life and mind, then, are the foundational values without which no other value can be created, but how we maneuver around life, determining what or whom we value more, is as abstract as my aversion to the Eagles.

@33. I know what DT is. He's an under qualified imbecile regardless of what his political affiliation is.

Again with the sidestepping the issue. Just admit that an embryo or zygote is a life or at least a potential life. It's not really a big deal. Am I a monster because I believe in women's reproductive autonomy over the potential life of a child? I don't think so. There's tons of valid reasons for abortion and none of them have to pass a morality standard if you're morals are adjusted to deal with reality properly. My issue with Catalina's "growth" comment was that its dishonest. And what's worse, any moderately intelligent person can discern that it's dishonest.

As for making it harder and more expensive, that's the price you pay to get what you want. If you want cheap and easy then you get what's being given. Welcome to adulthood.

@35. Deeeeep. You just wake n bake, bro?

@26 - I doubt sentience is a "thing" in any real sense. It's a philosophical value placed on the purported functions of our frontal lobes to comfort us with the illusion that our relationships, arts, and social niceties are more meaningful than the daily bustle of an anthill.

Don't get me wrong - I take comfort in that illusion, and find meaning in it. I think invention of meaning and willful subservience to illusion is our greatest evolutionary adaptation. But it's an error, I think, to assume that these values are natural, objective, or immutable.

@30 - Catalina didn't move the topic to whether and why one values life, or whether sentimentalizing someone else's womb rats is a mark on one's character. You did that. Moving the frame around and then criticizing others for playing within the new boundaries you set only makes you look smart if readers aren't paying attention.

@39. My aim isn't to look smart or morally grandstand. I have the least holy and the most simple of the positions being taken, (besides the womb rats analogy...dark)but in my opinion the most honest and pragmatic. Life is life no matter what stage of development it's in. But if women want to end a life that's inside of them for any reason be it convenience or safety, that's their decision to make. The less unwanted children, the better.

The post modern nihilism you're trying to inject into the discussion is appreciated, trust me, but it's useless because it lacks utility. The infinite different vantage point defining life and it's sanctity or it's meaninglessness are not what anyone who lives in the real world and discusses real world issues rely on to solve said issues. You have to accept the common utility of things to navigate and be understood. Diluting the issue further makes you look like you're masturbating in front of a mirror.

Save the meta combo breakers for philosophy class.

thelyamhound dear, I don't know any babies. I did, however, grow up in a huge extended family (sixteen aunts and uncles - including in-laws - thirty cousins, forty-two second cousins, etc) so I have a lot of experience with babies. Mother Vel-DuRay was fond of saying that everybody loves babies, but a lot of people don't like kids. I'm the opposite: I don't mind children who can take themselves to the bathroom and can hold their own in a conversation, but I don't have a whole lot of time for babies. Messy, tedious little creatures.

And don't be too hard on Our Dear Muffy. He/She is a newcomer and is just trying to show how smart he/she is. It's quite common here in our little slog.

My aim isn't to look smart or morally grandstand.

To state that you "sentimentalize" or foster a desire to protect infants mightn't be moral grandstanding, but to cast aspersions on someone's character because they don't certainly is.

Life is life no matter what stage of development it's in. But if women want to end a life that's inside of them for any reason be it convenience or safety, that's their decision to make. The less unwanted children, the better.

Agreed, but if you're operating from pure pragmatism , as you claim, why stop there? Why not eliminate the infirm, the chronically impoverished, the indigent? Why not limit all births? I ask not because I support these things, but because of my interest were wholly in "utility," I may consider them.

I suspect you and I don't support such positions for similar reasons - we are both sentimentalists, romantics, if for different foundational reasons. The difference that matters here is that I don't hold my sentiments to be axiomatic or a sign of my good character ... or the absence of them to be a stain on someone else's.