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Battle of the Stupid

Jill

Which is the more mind-bogglingly ridiculous argument:

1. The SCOTUS partial-birth abortion decision (from here on out referred to as Carhart II) was actually a victory for pro-choicers
OR
2. March of Dimes, which raises money for infant health, kills babies.

Let’s start with #1. His argument, which just made my IQ drop about 10 points, comes down to the idea that Carhart II (which he refers to as “Gonzales” throughout the piece — kinda not a great idea, since, being the Attorney General, there are a whole lot of cases that are “Gonzales v. someone”) actually affirmed pro-choice policies, primarily because Justice Kennedy is pro-choice. And because the majority opinion relied at least a little bit on precedent and didn’t say, “Abortion kills babies, now it is illegal. The End.” So congrats, pro-choicers, you won. I wonder how Steven Warshawsky would do as a sports writer? “Despite media reports that they lost, the game was actually a victory for the Yankees, because even though they lost 9-0, they beat the Mariners last time around, and the team wasn’t completely disbanded. Victory!”

And then there’s #2. It’s written by career anti-choice nut Jill Stanek, and titled “March of Dimes marches for death.” Which, coming from an anti-choicer, must mean that the March of Dimes funds abortions, right? Promotes abortions? Says anything at all about abortions? Well, no. But they “march for death” because they don’t spread lies about abortion, and because they aren’t explicitly anti-choice.

Anti-climactic, huh?

Her major point is that abortion increases your risk of premature delivery of a subsequent pregnancy — a contention that isn’t exactly a settled medical question (surprise, surprise). But the stupid gets extra-special here:

MOD does admit “women who have had a previous premature birth” are at risk for subsequent premature deliveries.

Objectively speaking, wouldn’t induced abortion more than qualify as a premature birth? While nature may allow a pregnant mother’s cervix to open prematurely, abortion forces it open.

Objectively speaking, wouldn’t this statement more than qualify as unbelievably inane? Abortion qualifies as a premature birth? That might make sense if you actually gave birth during an abortion. But as a general rule, you don’t (and don’t get started on the “partial-birth” abortion nonsense). Just because something comes out of your vaginal canal does not mean that you birthed it. As a rather illustrative example, I do not birth menstrual blood, even though it is expelled from my uterus and on down the baby chute. And if that does qualify as birth, then I at least want some benefits for my clumpy mucus-babies.

In fact, I’d suggest asking a woman who has both terminated and birthed a pregnancy if induced abortion should qualify as giving birth.

Oh, and March of Dimes also supports women’s rights to get in vitro fertilization. Which, in Stanek-ville, makes them Official Angels of Death. For, you know, thinking women should be allowed to have medical help in getting pregnant.

So who’s the winner? SCOTUS revisionist guy or organization-that-helps-babies-actually-kills-them lady?

30 thoughts on Battle of the Stupid

  2. Next target: the American Cancer Society, which refuses to lie to women and tell them that abortion causes breast cancer.

  6. Stanek is confusing causation and correlation – a common error among statistical illiterates. The fact that a woman who has had one premature birth is “at risk” for a subsequent premie is not that the first one causes the second one. That would be causation. It is that whatever caused the first one may still be around for the second one. That is correlation – two events with a common cause. From the point of view of a physician providing prenatal care, the correlation is important because it means that a woman who has had a premature birth should be followed more carefully than a woman who has not. But it does not mean that the first event caused the second event.

    Abortion is not like a premature birth because it is induced externally. So there is no reason to think that it would be correlated with a subsequent premature birth.

  7. I actually have a friend who said, after reading the Gonzalez decision, it could potentially be a good thing for pro-choicers in the future because (I haven’t read the whole thing) it states that a baby is a baby when it leaves the mother’s body, which he thinks could be used to support other abortion freedoms (i.e., well we can’t say that this kills babies because the precedent of the Gonzalez decision states that a baby becomes a baby upon exiting the mother’s body). I am skeptical, though; he is more optimistic than I am.

  8. It’s articles like those that make me wish that Logic was a required before you’re allowed to write something for public consumption.

  10. Warshawsky’s language sort of says it all… he talks about preserving the rights of the unborn, and the life of the baby… but there is completely zero language about the rights of a person over their own body.
    I have long felt that misogynists resent that women are needed for birth at all…I guess this is confirmation of that. There is a complete void around the woman’s argument for the integrity of her body. It’s not marginalized, but studiedly absent. Creepy.

    As far as the March of Dimes…they’re ‘killing babies’ about as badly as prolifers are “saving” them.

  11. Warshawsky’s language sort of says it all… he talks about preserving the rights of the unborn, and the life of the baby… but there is completely zero language about the rights of a person over their own body.
    I have long felt that misogynists resent that women are needed for birth at all…I guess this is confirmation of that. There is a complete void around the woman’s argument for the integrity of her body. It’s not marginalized, but studiedly absent. Creepy.

    As far as the March of Dimes…they’re ‘killing babies’ about as badly as prolifers are “saving” them. Just check CPS records.

  12. I have long felt that misogynists resent that women are needed for birth at all – Perkyshai

    Uterus envy?

  13. Objectively speaking, wouldn’t induced abortion more than qualify as a premature birth? While nature may allow a pregnant mother’s cervix to open prematurely, abortion forces it open.

    “[N]ature may allow?” Allow? Obviously yet another forced birth advocate who seems to think giving birth is a walk in the park while abortion is far more damaging. How can we believe what anybody so obviously ignorant of what is involved in giving birth has to say? One could argue that access to abortion would lower the risk of future premature births as problematic pregnancies would be terminated in a way that, unlike a traumatic premature birth, would result in less damage the woman’s body as the cervix would only have to open up a little as you aren’t having to get the fetus out entirely intact.

  14. One could argue that access to abortion would lower the risk of future premature births as problematic pregnancies would be terminated in a way that, unlike a traumatic premature birth, would result in less damage the woman’s body as the cervix would only have to open up a little as you aren’t having to get the fetus out entirely intact.

    For real, DAS! My birth resulted in major damage to my mom’s cervix, weakening it to the point that it just couldn’t hold a pregnancy. After I was born, my mom gave birth to a premature baby that died about an hour after birth, and then had three miscarriages. And she’s never had an induced abortion, either! Had she aborted when she was pregnant with me, her cervix would never have sustained the damage, and she could have had five children instead of two. Where is Jill Stanek crying about how giving birth kills babies?

  15. So, one way MOD accomplishes its mission statement of “preventing birth defects and infant mortality,” is by destroying preborn humans with birth defects, who incidentally might have grown into infants who died – killing two birds with one stone.

    …and this is a BAD thing? The anti-logic is astounding. “Gee, this embryo has a severe genetic defect that is incompatible with life. It will die no matter what we do. So, let’s condemn it to it’s “natural death”. Yeah! Let’s use all of the money and time to implant this into a woman, and let the mother go through the rigors of pregnancy and delivery, and spend thousands of dollars on the baby during it’s short, miserable life– because killing is wrong!!”

    If MOD was FOR the above, then it could be truly said to be contributing to a “culture of death”.

  17. I’ve got to go with number two. Discouraging people from donating to a charity for premature babies because they’re not anti-abortion enough is just sick.

  18. didn’t read the mod link, but did read the fox op-ed on carhart ii. I’ll take any read on carhart ii that is a win for pro-choicers. maybe i’m clutching at straws, but some of the points in that piece actually made me feel better about the blasted decision.

  19. Yes, the organization that funded the cure for polio is wholesaling death throughout the nation. No way they could possibly be a legitimate medical organization seeking to minimize suffering.

    I think this one wins for sheer denial of reality. But it’s close.

  20. So wait, does that mean that when my fiancé and I decide to have sex without a condom once in a blue moon for a special occasion (I’m on the Patch), that afterwards, I give birth to semen?

  21. This is apparently not a terrible unheard of argument. My friend, who still attends a Catholic high school, says that her class was told by the administration that they should not support or participate in March of Dimes because they are not pro-life. They didn’t offer to explain how they came to this conclusion, though…

  22. …I don’t know why I wrote terrible there? I think I was writing ‘terribly,’ and then changed my mind and uhh.. yeah.

  23. That’s the 2nd “Carhart II really was a WIN for pro-choice” argument I’ve read recently, and I think I’ve figured out why they both pissed me off. If Kennedy really wanted to allow women to have the option, why go to so much trouble to carefully spell out various loopholes? Why not just say, “This law sucks. PBA-supporters lose,” and rule against it? (Not to mention all that “we must protect the poor fragile women from scary information” crap. Honestly. I think I’m as offended by that part of the opinion as the “Health exception? Who needs that?” part. Which neither “Carhart was a win for choice” guy – yes, both men – has bothered to mention.)

    Even so, I think I’m gonna choose Door #2 for the maximum stupid. Wow.

  24. Pingback: appletree » Blog Archive » Tuesday Outrage: ‘He-man Woman Hater’s Club’ Edition

  25. I agree with trailer park that #2 is the more stupid, albeit by a small margin. However, I think they’re on a level when it comes to evil.

  26. So, one way MOD accomplishes its mission statement of “preventing birth defects and infant mortality,” is by destroying preborn humans with birth defects, who incidentally might have grown into infants who died – killing two birds with one stone.

    Wait! MoD kills babies? Silly me. I thought they were primarily in the business of raising money for research.

  27. Doesn’t an induced birth involve the cervix being ‘forced open’, presumably more so than is necessary for an early abortion? And there are other procedures and uterine surgeries that require dilation of the cervix.

  29. I asked my doctor about this before I had an induction and she said that there is very little research to support it, and the little research there is has shown that multiple late term abortions can lead to a slight increase in the likelihood of a future premature birth. Multiple late term abortions are really, really rare however, so this is not something most people have to worry about.

  30. I could imagine it being a “win” for the pro-choice movement if specific D&C procedures where struck down due to the availability of a safer, less traumatic D&X procedure: the court would have diffused pro-life anger by giving them a “victory” while affirming that abortion can be regulated to ensure the procedures are safe, which is ultimately a pro-choice procedure. But since the law that was upheld actually seemed to strike down the less safe, more traumatic procedure (because it was the procedure that was icky enough to get people fired up against it but not so icky people just got grossed out and ignored the pro-lifers) and to the extent that the issue of safety/health/etc. was raised it was done in the most patronizing of ways, it’s hard to see how the latest decision is a victory for our side in any meaningful way except “it could have been worse — they could have been truly activist and used this as the reason to reverse Roe v. Wade”.

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