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.
Interesting fact: Cancer cells have their own unique genetic code,
But do they have names? Can we call them Charlie Cancer or something?
Ah ha!
Does this constitute an answer?
Er, I think that should be “billion” not “million” on that tidepool thing. Silly big numbers being all big and confusing 🙂
I did think that might’ve been a little short… 😀 Ah well, the point is still a point, especially with a larger stretch of time. “You are the result of an unbroken chain stretching back billions of years.” Ah Carl Sagan, I wish I knew him.
NWOSlave – I’m answering your question directly now:
My life, as far as my consciousness is concerned, did not begin at conception. My life started when I became able to think and experience things with my brain. Since that’s very subjective we can’t say for certain when a fetus develops that ability, but clearly it has to be after they develop a brain, at least.
Eh, don’t bother. NWO’s idea of “answering” involves getting asked questions, responding with more questions, then getting huffy when nobody answers his absolutely rediculous rhetoric. -_-
I think abortion needs to start being called “voluntary miscarriage.”
I’m reminded of Dr. Evil in Austin Powers:
Dr. Evil: Here’s the plan. We get the warhead and we hold the world ransom for… ONE MILLION DOLLARS!
Number Two: Don’t you think we should ask for *more* than a million dollars? A million dollars isn’t exactly a lot of money these days. Virtucon alone makes over 9 billion dollars a year!
Dr. Evil: Really? That’s a lot of money.
[pause]
Dr. Evil: Okay then, we hold the world ransom for…
Dr. Evil: One… Hundred… BILLION DOLLARS!
And to be killed before I became conscious would, from my point of view (or lack thereof), be entirely the same as if my parents had never met. It’d be a bummer for me as I exist now, but for me as I existed then (or rather, didn’t)–it would be meaningless.
Plymouth, that’s what you get for trying to use your ladybrain on mathy stuff. It’s just not designed for that sort of thing.
Yeah, I only have two degrees in engineering, which they only gave me because of affirmative action. Clearly this numbers thing is beyond me!
Personally, I think a fertile male and female standing in a room together are a baby, and it’s murder if they walk out of that room without having unprotected sex.
@Holly:
Huh… That’s gonna make our meetup next week very… interesting…
I think if they just exist for any length of time within the same room regardless of actual position in the room they are committing abortion.
In fact, that means I committed abortion yesterday!
“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.”
How is a zygote more alive than an egg cell? I mean, yes, in a sense it is alive – as someone (Holly, I think?) pointed out, cancer cells are alive to. So is moss, and fungi. In fact, as far as actual protein makeup of a human zygote isn’t all that different then the zygote of any other mammal.
The question is not when something is alive – that’s just silly. The question is more like, when is it a person? When does it acquire human rights? Most of us here seem to agree that your person-ness stems from your brain (do you agree with that, NWO? Or is it something else?) Exactly when the brain has reached that stage of development is something we do not yet know, but it’s certainly not in the embryo or zygote, and likely isn’t in the early stages of the fetus either.
Also, since you believe life begins at conception – which part? Conception takes many hours, sometimes a whole day. At the beginning, or at the end?
To all of you foolishly yammering on about life begining billions of years ago. Here is the question again.
Can any of you contest the fact that your life began at the moment of conception?
So the question is “your” life. If “your” life began billions of years ago than illuminate me with all the details. I’d love to hear about it.
Holly, you’re joking right? Are you telling me you don’t exist when you’re not thinking or experiencing things? Do you exist while you sleep? Do you exist while under anesthesia? Do you exist if you’re knocked unconcious? You’re telling me you don’t exist and aren’t alive while you’re not or before you’re thinking or experiencing?
All this talk about book clubs and all your many accomplishments. And none of you can even admit your life began at conception. Truely the most intellectually inferior people I’ve ever had the misfortune of conversing with.
Well, I for one think that if a fertile man and woman are still walking upon this earth, the potential for life, and therefore life, and therefore baby, is there. But since people don’t normally leave earth, the baby is never actually killed… In short, nobody go into space unless you want to commit mass genocide of cute gurgly babies.
Ah ha!
wow, talk about flouncing….
My life certainly did *not* begin at conception.
My life as it is right now started on January 2, 2007. So there.
Also this:
kirbywarp | June 9, 2011 at 7:14 pm
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.
But of course, you are the one insisting that it is so, right? Isn’t the one doing the claiming the one that has to show evidence for it? Or is everybody correct until someone else proves them wrong? I think NWO has a blue mermaid tattoo’d on his left butt cheek, and if he can’t prove me otherwise, then I’m correct in this assertion. Why do you have a mermaid on your ass, NWO?
(do you agree with that, NWO? Or is it something else?)
I am almost certain he believes that person-ness originates with a penis.
You seem to have a hard time understanding what people are saying.
Everybody here is contesting your central point that life begins at conception. Life is a continuum; it began billions of years ago. Sure, we were all fetuses at one point but those fetuses weren’t us any more than the sperm and egg cells were us.
Whether you agree with that or not is one thing but you don’t seem to be reading what anybody writes. Do you have reading comprehension problems?
Can any of you contest the fact that your life began at the moment of conception?
I think we all DID, you putz.
It wasn’t “My” life until there was a”me” to have that life; there wasn’t a me until some type of consciousness was attached to that life. As has been pointed out, that exact moment is kind of a biggish gray area.
Are you telling me you don’t exist when you’re not thinking or experiencing things? Do you exist while you sleep? Do you exist while under anesthesia? Do you exist if you’re knocked unconcious? You’re telling me you don’t exist and aren’t alive while you’re not or before you’re thinking or experiencing?
are you serious? do you really not realize that brains are working all the time you’re asleep?
“Do you exist while under anesthesia? Do you exist if you’re knocked unconcious? You’re telling me you don’t exist and aren’t alive while you’re not or before you’re thinking or experiencing?”
You are still thinking and feeling when unconscious. Dreaming is a form of thinking and feeling, you’re just a bit cut off from your sensory systems. Also EEG in REM sleep very much resembles EEG in waking.
If I understand correctly, Holly is making the argument that it is her mind/brain – that big complicated neural structure – that essentially makes us who we are. I would be inclined to agree – our thoughts, memories, and behavioral control all reside in our brains. If you were to give me a lung transplant I would still consider myself the same person, if you found a way to magically give me a brain transplant I’m certain I wouldn’t be.
At conception (regardless of whether you’re talking about fertilization or implantation) the zygote has exactly 0 neurons. It takes months for something that could truly be called a brain to develop. Therefore: Not enough brain complexity, not a PERSON*.
*Not using the word “life”, because as I’ve said before, a petri dish full of fungi is freaking alive – and I’m not concerned about its rights. Are you?
@Zombie – Haha. You may well be correct.