As SallyStrange has pointed out in the comments here, quite a few MRAs seem to have a bad case of “womb envy” – or, more specifically, “abortion envy.” That is, they envy the ability of women to abort fetuses that they – the guys, as sperm providers — have had a part in creating. And since they don’t get final say in whether or not the woman in the equation gets an abortion, many of these guys claim they should have the right to a “paper abortion” – that is, to wash their hands financially of the baby once it is born.
But for every MRA demanding their own right to an abortion, there’s another MRA who thinks abortion is an unmitigated evil, which in essence means that they think pregnant women should be forced to give birth to babies they don’t want. The guy behind The Life Zone evidently thinks this way. And so does one New Mexican pro-lifer named Greg Fultz, who has launched a bizarre campaign designed to shame the woman who aborted what he thinks of as “his” baby – the highlight of which is a giant billboard depicting him holding what looks like the blackened carcass of a baby under the headline “This Would Have Been a Picture Of My 2-Month Old Baby If The Mother Had Decided To NOT KILL Our Child!”
I’ve been meaning to write about the Fultz thing for some time, but haven’t, because frankly the whole thing makes me depressed. Over the past day or so three separate Man Boobz readers have brought the subject up, so I figure it’s time to deal with the subject. My solution? I’m going to punt, and rather than post about it specifically I’m just going to point you to an excellent, and nicely sarcastic, post on the subject from Jill on Feministe.
Since Jill wrote that post, Fultz has been ordered by a judge to take the billboard down or face jail; he says he won’t. Details here.
NOTE: I originally ended this post with a 1200 word dissertation spelling out my take on abortion. But reading it back over again I realized that many of the points I made in it had already been made, in many cases more deftly, by various commenters in yesterday’s 800-plus comment thread (which actually stayed on the topic for the first several hundred comments, until more or less everything that needed to be said on the subject had been said). The tl;dr summary: her body, her choice. “Paper abortions” only work if the government is willing to step in to make up for the loss of child support, and that isn’t going to happen in the US any time soon. (And I don’t see many MRAs calling for increased support for single moms.)
So instead of abortion, let’s talk about Fultz. What a dick.
Ok, so sometime between fertilization and 30 years old.
I think everyone can agree on that.
Heck, i will go so far as to say terminating the life of a putative “Johnny” after, say, ten years post-natal, constitutes murder. It may be controversial, but I will stand by it.
Thank you for the link, law1204!
What you’ve said makes perfect sense. But if Fultz wants to fight it, let’s hope he spends a LOT of money doing so.
“Some time after conception, just before a woman decides that she can’t afford to raise a child and goes to get an abortion. Actually, I think its about three seconds before the procedure starts”
I like Mad Magazine’s definition: the moment the man unhooks the woman’s bra.
Of course, if she isn’t wearing one, he’s facing a major dilemma.
When exactly does a new life begin Holly? Oh yea, at the moment of conception. Pretty basic stuff for all the high minded, well read geniuses that haunt this site. I can say with 100% certainty that the life of everyone posting here began at conception.
NWOslave:
So a miscarriage is manslaughter? And the some-large-percentage of zygotes that don’t take to the uterus wall is suicide? Seriously, no matter how sure you are of yourself, and no matter with how much conviction you repeat yourself, you don’t give yourself one ounce more credibility.
At the moment of conception, the embryo is a single cell.
It cannot see. It cannot hear. It cannot feel pain. It cannot form memories. It cannot have thoughts or emotions. It certainly cannot survive on its own, and actually has surprisingly bad odds of surviving even in the womb.
The only way that single cell is different from the several million skin cells I lose in the shower is that it has unique genetics. But since those genetics have not yet been expressed, it is only a philosophical “person,” not an actual one. It is no more a person, at that stage, than a description of a person. Nothing exists but potential.
I do not think it is murder to cut off mere potential.
Pretty.
NWOslave
What have you done for children whose parents are unable to provide for them? What organizations do you help fund or work with?
What would you have done with children whose parents were not able to support them?
Give me some realistic answers and I’ll support you.
As usual NWO lacks reading skills xD If he read those posts he’d realize it’s not a mutual admiration society, it’s an Ami admiration society >:3
(actually it was mostly NWO and MRAL who were the blog fertilizer there xD but it all lead to the power of the XD so all is right w/ the world :3 ) (also NWO didn’t answer any of the questions or counters there as is his wont xD )
I am the bio–father of an aborted fetus. The mother was early forties, traveled a lot, married, and didn’t have that much of a sex life with her husband. She worked in a field where women usually said that when you get back from an assignment youl get pregnant through careless horniness. That carelessness was with me and things happened. I never thought for a moment that abortion was anything but HER choice, though I would have gladly accepted her decision to continue the pregnancy. Might have straightened me out.
The whole issue here is that I wasn”t the one who was pregnant. I didn’t have to go through pregnancy and labor, I didn’t have to get a divorce. The choice was hers, and though I somewhat wished otherwise, that’s the way things should have gone. Do I have regrets? A few. I’m sure she has a few regrets too. But so what? This is about choice, and that’s all there is to it.
Ahhh Kirbywarp, a miscarriage is now equated to an act that willfully destroys another life. How silly of me. If a person drowns they’re dead, if I drown them they’re also dead. One is an accident, the other is willful murder. Nice try killer.
you’re using a word there that makes the difference >_> xD but then that’s the whole issue here isn’t it… except that debating THAT part is boring, it’s more fun to just go w/ it xD
And Kirby, being compared to Doug Gilmour is no small feat :3 Congratulations! xD (I love Dougie… so that’s a 2nd big compliment, from me to you :3 )
Life began 2 millions years ago in a tidepool*. Everything since is just a continuation of that original life. That’s not what’s interesting. What’s interesting is when SEPARATE life begins and when SENTIENT life begins. I guarantee you if I showed you a human zygote and a cat zygote side by side you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Are you against cat abortions? ‘Cause when I was a kid we had one of our cats fixed and it turns out she was pregnant and they aborted the kitten fetuses. CAT MURDER!!!
* yes, I realize this is the cartoon version of evolutionary theory. I get to be flip if I wanna be 🙂
if I drown them they’re also dead.
Inadvertent killing is defined as Manslaughter, Slaver, and you can be held liable for it.
So the question is, are you seriously saying that women should be prosecuted for manslaughter if they have a miscarriage?
.. You know what manslaughter is, right? Accidental or unintentional murder? You made the comparison, I’m following it out to its conclusion. But honestly, Holly made about as good a point as you can make. How is a single cell different from any other single cell in your body, save for the genetic difference? Are you a religious man, thinking that God somehow inserts a soul into every egg upon fertilization? What basis are you using to say that conception==person?
As always I answer questions but get no answers. One simple question and I’m done with you murder advocates.
Can any of you contest the fact that your life began at the moment of conception?
Interesting fact: Cancer cells have their own unique genetic code, unlike that of the host. But because cancer cannot act or communicate, and as far as we know it cannot experience, we would never consider a cancerous mass to be a “person.”
I think we all need to get sports types nicknames (the good ones, like Killer or Cujo or Run DMC something, not the ones that are just somebody’s initials and numbers together xD Like CV3 >_> )
Tho most of us alrdy are using nicknames, but we can have double nicknames! 😀 Kirby is apparently Killer… I’m the Rodeo Cat :3
Actually NWO there’s about a dozen questions and scenarios on that last post you’ve completely ignored, and even more on the previous ones xD You just answer the questions you want to and aren’t scared of xD
When did you answer a question?
NWOslave:
I can. Just as much as I can contest that my life didn’t begin 2 million years ago in a pool with the first self-replicating proteins, as Plymouth pointed out. Life doesn’t start at the beginning of the unbroken chain of events that leads to your birth, life begins (at the very least) when you have grown the brain that gives you your personality and ability to experience.
Oh yeah and I can xD My life began in heaven :3 Also given that I’m an angel, I can tell you that life doesn’t begin for the rest of you humans at conception… SORRY, my boss disagrees with you… I’ll give him your feedback when he does the next patch tho and maybe we’ll make that change :3
XD
^______________^
I do hope this isn’t feeding the troll too much, but I have to wonder if NWOslave would feel so strongly if the fetus turned out to be female. Little Johnny, indeed.
Whether or not this woman had an abortion, Fultz’ behavior is absolutely unacceptable. If she had murdered a full-grown adult, like Fultz’ mother or something, this response is not reasonable or logical. Putting up billboards condemning people for their behavior just seems like a huge “neener neener” move – “everyone knows what a shit human YOU are! But not ME!” And he admits he doesn’t even know. Strong case, there.
And of course, it just reeks of abuse. The ages certainly suggest that he may have been something happening when she was underage (and it’s not that there can’t be age gaps in relationships, just that someone significantly older than a minor partner often correlates with a power imbalance). His violent, angry tweets don’t really give the impression of a happy relationship. He has the hallmarks of an abuser, and it seems like this woman is just trying to get away from him.
Also, Ami, I’d say NWO has a lot more to answer for–and much more spurious bullshit to explain.
Example:
last year a bill was tabled that would make anyone who voiced an opinion against abortion an act of terrorism.
Yes, and that was what exactly? You can’t just pull something like that out of your ass without some kind of supporting evidence. Otherwise, you look like a liar or a simpleton.
Oh, right. Never mind.
Can any of you contest the fact that your life began at the moment of conception?
Yep. Life didn’t begin then, a specific cellular process did. There was life before that conception.
It’s a meaningless question for this purpose anyway, Slaver, because that life is not a PERSON.
NEWS FLASH FOR SLAVER: the human body spontaneously aborts fertilized eggs ALL THE TIME. So I guess if you believe in God, then God supports abortion? She sure must, because she causes a HELLA lot of them.