About a decade ago, I wrote a post Why Pro-Choice is Pro-Life. It wasn’t very detailed. Though, some good stuff came up in the comments.
Given the extremism in the U.S. today, I think this topic requires a much more detailed and well-thought out post. This post contains information that may be relevant anywhere, but is deliberately U.S. focused. I am a U.S. citizen. I am seeing increasing extremism in my country. I am appalled by the treatment of women in the U.S. today. Increasingly, we are passing legislation that turns women into incubators. I only wish that The Handmaid’s Tale were more far-fetched than it actually is.
These days, I’m even seeing people on the reddit sub /r/atheism arguing from a non-religious standpoint about why they think the anti-choice stance makes sense. I can’t understand that and want to have an answer on hand ready to explain all of the very many reasons why the so-called pro-life but really pro-fetus, anti-choice, and anti-woman stance is horrifically cruel and cannot be supported rationally.
At the last debate, Donal Trump again reiterated that no one has more respect for women than he does. That got me thinking, unfortunately.
If all men had the same level of respect for women as Donald J. Drumpf, what kind of a world would we live in? Worse, what if some women had so little self-respect that they voted for someone who cared as little for women as Donald Trump?
Unfortunately, I doubt that a write-up in a medical journal will get as much airplay as the guy with the dead orange tribble on his head or even as much air play as Jeb “my brother didn’t do it” Bush. Would this be called “hot air play”?
Anyway, The New England Journal of Medicine is solidly and squarely on the side of Planned Parenthood.
As someone with type 1 diabetes, I can assure anyone who thinks otherwise that the effects of undiagnosed and untreated type 1 diabetes are beyond unpleasant. I ripped a hole in a lung and a hole in my esophagus from extreme vomiting.
These have healed, though my doctor still checks carefully 26 years later.
Once diagnosed, it took some time to get under control. I was on nothing by mouth for 2 more days after vomiting my guts out for a day or two prior to the hospital. I got motion sickness in a wheel chair on my way to radiology. I passed out quite thoroughly on a cold, hard, metal x-ray table.
26 years later, I am a healthy diabetic in tight control with no complications.
Children of the Followers of Christ, Christian Scientists, and other psychotic morons who believe they should prey on pray for their children rather than actually doing something to help them regularly allow children (yes children) to suffer far more than I did at age 25. It makes me physically ill to think that such people exist and worse, reproduce.
For years, I’ve been saying that the Bible says nothing about abortion. Since abortion predates the Bible by centuries and was commonplace in the area where the Bible was written, I used this as an argument that there is no Biblical foundation for any religious objection to abortion.
However, someone just pointed me at a section of the Bible I’ve missed.
Numbers 5:11-31 actually mandates that women who are unfaithful to their husbands undergo abortion and even gives the recipe for making the Biblical version of RU-486. So, the next time some wacko religious freak who thinks that the government has more to say about a woman’s vagina than she does because … Jesus/God/Bible, point them at Numbers chapter 5. Read it for yourself here. It’s quite amusing.
Yes, the video is 48 minutes long. It’s worth it. I’ll wait for others to comment, if any bother to watch the whole thing, before adding my $0.02. Seriously, do watch it. It’s well worth the time. And, I don’t say that about a lot of 48 minute videos.
I came across Exodus 21:22-25 while performing research for my rebuttal to a reply by C_Andy_3. I would like to thank C_Andy_3 for the discussion that led to my discovery of this passage.
Old Testament quote, emphasis mine (thanks to Mechon Mamre for the RaMBaM translation):
22 And if men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet no harm follow, he shall be surely fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
23 But if any harm follow, then thou shalt give life for life,
24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot,
25 burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
This clearly states that the fetus was not a life. In fact, it indicates that a miscarriage could be caused without causing harm. The loss of the fetus can be compensated by mere money. After that, if there is harm, it is life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, ….
First, let me be clear. I am not joking about this. I am being as serious as an atheist who believes that real sin lies only in harming others can be on the subject. For religious readers, if I have any, I hope this encourages thought and dialog. I welcome all serious responses regardless of whether we agree on the topic.
So, here are my points about why I believe abstinence is sinful from both a biblical standpoint and more importantly to me why abstinence only education and the encouragement of abstinence pledges and the like are inherently sinful.
What the fuck is going on these days? Women, why are you allowing this? Why are these products selling? Is this all part of the repugnican war on women? Are women now allowing themselves to be subjugated in the way that repugnicans want, even down to the products they buy?
Sorry, I couldn’t resist modifying FFRF’s title to be a humorous reference to Stephen Colbert. I hope he won’t mind.
Anyway, this is a fantastic article about what the Catholic church requires for someone to call themselves a Catholic. According to church doctrine, if you don’t meet the requirements, you are not a Catholic. Read the article and try coming up with a guess of how many of the world’s 1.2 billion self-proclaimed Catholics are really Catholic under church dogma. I’m guessing the number of true Catholics is actually 2 or 3 orders of magnitude smaller.
Just on the very very off chance that Stephen Colbert or one of his staff actually (dare I say it) inadvertently stumble across my blog, I’ll plug Colbert’s book with the reference for my hybrid title in hopes of appeasing his lawyers him.
One could debate the ethics of a doctor having an affair with a patient. The answer is likely that it depends on the case. No one is suggesting that this case was anything but consensual. In this case though, it’s just a start. This shithead then went on to pressure the woman he impregnated to have an abortion. IMNSHO, women should be free to make that choice on their own without undue influence. But, that’s not bad enough. This Republican member of congress claims that abortion is murder. He fights against abortion rights. Well, he does unless it’s his illegitimate fetus.
Can one get any more hypocritical than this? Is it possible?
Congressman Paul Broun has publicly stated that he is deliberately failing to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States of America. As such, he should be forcibly removed from office for the failure to follow his oath of office. Here is a direct quote from this idiot who has proclaimed that the earth is 9,000 years old, and that evolution, the big bang theory, and embryology are lies straight from the pit of hell.
As you congressman, I hold the holy bible as being the major directions to me for how I vote in Washington DC. And, I’ll continue to do that.
Paul Broun’s act of legislating based on his personal religious beliefs is in direct contradiction to this famous quote.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ….
I’m hearing a lot from atheist friends who don’t want to be offensive. They are upset by the tactics being used by some atheist organizations today. I have an alternate take on things.
Background:
Here are a couple of ads that show the kinds of things to which many on both sides of the fence seem to object.
I’ve titled this post Misanthropia because I believe that I have every bit as much chance of making these improvements as I do of creating a true Utopia, i.e. none.
Still, I’m going to label each suggestion either plausible or implausible. The plausible changes will be the ones I expect never to have implemented because the Koch brothers and other multi-gazillionaires own all of our politicians and control the whole system by which they are put in place. However, I expect that I would be able to convince most of the so-called 99% that these changes would be good. The implausible are the ones I feel strongly enough about to post despite the extreme likelihood that they are so radical that I couldn’t even convince a significant percentage of the so-called 99%.
Each of the following suggestions or cluster of suggestions are meant to be taken individually. I believe each on its own could help make the U.S. a better country. That said, even were all of these suggestions implemented tomorrow, I do not expect that it would fix all of our problems. I’m not that smart.
When Population Connection posted this on their official Facebook page, they warned of strong language. If 4 shits and a fuck are too much for you, you’ve come to the wrong blog. The cursing is neither particularly offensive nor in high enough quantity to detract from the content, IMNSHO.
This post is not safe for work due to strong language and deliberately offensive content. Click to see more only if you have thick skin or are an antitheist. Note however, that though I originally intended this to be a fun, humorous, deliberately offensive, anti-religious post, as I typed it, I found that I had made at least one very serious point.
I’m not sure why the press doesn’t blast this guy every time he opens his mouth. He just keeps continually contradicting himself. Perhaps the press just finds him too easy a target. Perhaps it feels too much like kicking an old dog. Regardless of where you stand on the issues, you can’t believe a word the man says.
Here’s a friendly reminder from a doctor who remembers fixing up the damage done by illegal abortion. It’s becoming more and more forgotten that desperate women will get their abortions, legal or not. And, when they’re not legal, they may be lethal. Therefore, pro-choice is indeed the pro-life stance.
And, for the delusional religious individuals in the audience, you may be interested to know that abortion was practiced 1,550 years before the time of the myth of Christ and even solidly before the dates in the Old Testament. And, yet, despite the fact that the both the Old and New Testaments were not at all squeamish about discussing sexual matters, there is no explicit mention at all of abortion in either testament.
Also, check out the incredibly impressive Heart of the Adirondacks project in the Adirondack State Park, the largest park in the continental United States at twice the size of Yellowstone.
Posted by Misanthropic Scott 
The Misanthropic Principle 
