So our excitable old friend MarkyMark (not the actor-singer) just put up a not-very-original rant of the “women are worse than Hitler because of abortion” variety. More interesting than his post — which is frankly not very interesting — is this comment from an anonymous fellow that takes misogynistic self-righteousness to a whole new (low) level:
This is one of the reasons that I use women for my convenience. They can kill with impunity – nothing I do to them comes close to that level of evil. So they are for my pleasure, then I ditch them although I do come back sometimes. (They aren’t very bright which is what makes it workable.)
Yep: He’s not just a self-righteous prick; he’s self-righteous about being a prick.
I can only hope his own “evil” is mostly of the “slept with a woman and didn’t call her back” sort — or is just imaginary internet boasting — because his “logic” could pretty much justify anything short of violent murder.
I truly don’t understand how people (not just MRAs, surprisingly) can equate things like World War 2, the Holocaust or similarly horrible losses of life to abortion. It’s as though they honestly believe that women are all having illegal 3rd trimester abortions…or just having them for the hell of it.
Thankfully, I’ve never gotten pregnant but that’s because my lover is infertile. I have known women who have had abortions due to medical complications…and one due to rape. It gets me so f***ing pissed when people say “you can’t get pregnant from rape” or “even though it was a rape baby, the woman has a duty to carry it” or (my favorite) “Feminists and Wiccans purposefully have abortions since it’s legal sacrifice to their Goddess”.
Really, guys? Really?
I wish people didn’t have to get abortions…but so long as the procedure is done before there is a heartbeat, I really can’t say that it’s bad. Even for the complicated times when there IS a heartbeat, I understand that circumstances may have changed…Regardless of my own views, I’d never try to get abortion illegalized.
I guess that’s the difference between myself and politicians.
Notice that whether the individual woman in question has had an abortion is irrelevant. She could have an abortion, therefore she is subhuman scum.
I’d never heard the one about Wiccans…I know there’s a way to parody that belief and make it funny/make fun of people who think that, but I’m too offended and pissed off to think of it right now.
MarkyMark is my favorite. That man is truly out where the buses don’t run, bless his heart.
I call bullshit on his commenter. Typical MRA projection and wish fulfillment.
Oh, and MarkyMark is totally wrong about other species not killing their offspring. Very, very wrong.
Really, MarkyMark? Then explain all those personhood bills and other restrictive abortion legislation that conservatives are trying like hell to pass.
Some asshole made the same drive-by comment over at Pharyngula in the discussion thread about the anniversary of the Lepine killings in Canada. It’s definitely one of their talking points now — violence against women doesn’t matter because abortion.
Also, I just recently discovered grumpy cat! She is so cute!!
There’s heartbeat in week five. I’m pretty certain most abortions occur when the heart is already pretty well-developed.
I can’t see why the heart would be morally relevant though. To me, the interesting thing when it comes to killing is whether the thing in question is capable of consciousness (I’m not meaning self-awareness or anything fancy like that, just having experiences, feelings etc). There’s a Swedish professor, MD and medical researcher called Hugo Lagercrantz who has fetal development as his particular field of expertise, particularly the development of the brain. He argues that a fetus can’t be conscious before week 25. This is because the development of synapses doesn’t speed up until week 20, and approximately at week 25, there are enough synapses for allowing the brain to process information. Before week 20, the fetus has loads of rapidly dividing brain cells, but they aren’t really connected to each other. The fetus has bodily reactions to various stimuli WAY before week 25, but Lagercrantz’s argument is that it can’t really experience anything until the brain is capable of processing some information that comes in from the body.
I’ve never seen an anti-abortionist contradict his statements about brain development. What anti-abortionists do point out, over and over again, his how early there’s heart beat, and how early various bodily reactions to stimuli can be detected. But I don’t see why this would be morally relevant.
Anyway, as I actually argued in a magazine a while ago, an anti-abortionist who truly believe that abortion is murder and that it’s more important to prevent abortions than respecting people’s bodily integrity, should seriously argue for mandatory sterilisation of all boys. If everyone gets to donate sperm first, the human species could still reproduce through artificial insemination. That way, we would have no unwanted pregnancies in the first place, and therefore no abortions. We know that people still have LOTS of abortions in countries where they are banned, so anyone who’s concerned about the poor babies should be prepared to embrace way more drastical measures than merely banning abortions.
Anti-abortionists who go “NO WAY” at the thought of mandatory sterilisation should seriously think again, and consider whether they’re really concerned about the poor babies or whether they just want to punish slutty women.
Dvärghundspossen, that sounds like some really interesting research, do you have any links to articles about it or the paper itself? Less to read myself (I wouldn’t understand it) but more to use as evidence for when arguing with anti-choice nutjobs.
Also, I love how loads of MRA’s are anti-abortion, but won’t countenance the idea that they be held responsible for the offspring they help to create. You can’t have it both ways bubba, if you’re going to insist that pregnancies be carried to term, wanted or not, then you need to cough up for the kids upkeep once it’s born.
Here’s a though MRA’s, keep abortion safe, legal and easily accessible and guess what? Fewer poor put upon menz being forced to pay child support by the feminazi rigged courts!
Yeah, don’t you just love that disconnect? It’s all part of the patriarchal notion that women and children are the property of the head of household. Women can’t make decisions about their bodies, because they aren’t people — they are possessions. Only men can decide to accept or deny their offspring.
Off topic (when am I not!), but Suzanne Venker has written a follow-up to The War on Men. Basically, since men like to hunt and kill, this is why women should let their husbands drive the car.
They’re not opposed to abortion in principle; they just hate that it’s women who get to decide whether it happens or not.
Btw, totally off-topic, but I just found out Grumpy Cat’s owners actually named him/her “‘Tard.” After “tartar sauce” (riiiiiiight). So I refer to shim online as Bart the Grumpy Cat for anti-ableist re-naming purposes (don’t ask why Bart, it’s a long and stupid tale). So if anyone wants to do that too, with “Bart” or some other alternate cat name they select.
Is there some way I can not have to share a planet with people like this anymore, because it’s starting to get to the point where I just kind of want to leave, and go to mars or some shit like that. The fact that this is still tolerated in our society, nay lauded because of “freedom of speech” is deplorable, and I’m really starting to reach my wit’s end.
Apparently the owner works at Red Lobster and her 10 year old daughter named her Tardar Sauce. I also cringed when I saw the spelling. It could have been a good teaching moment for the kid to explain why tard isn’t nice. Or they could have just spelled it Tartar Sauce.
Okay, beyond the fact that it’s utter bullshit that one sex of a species would be social creatures while the other sex of the species are not (protip: all human beings are social creatures), WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH DRIVING A CAR?!
And I keep telling my husband that when I’ve had my driver’s license for five years and is legally allowed to train someone else to drive, I’m gonna teach him so he can get a license too, but he thinks it’s really comfortable that I’m always the one driving…
I’m still confused as to how if I provide for my children, I’m stopping their father from doing so.
Does he actually think women are gleeful about abortions? That we’re all just waiting around for the pregnancy test to read positive so we can scream HOORAH I GET TO KILL ANOTHER ONE, LET’S HOPE THE FETUS IS MALE? I’m pretty sure that has never happened in the history of anything.
I have this idea of a man with a giant spear or something leaning out a car window and chasing a woolly mammoth or giraffe or something.
Although in that context, it would actually be way safer to let the woman drive (not even getting into why the man has to be the one with the spear), because driving while trying to spear something seems really unsafe.
DINGDINGDING
Ditto to antiabortionists against birth control.
Ditto to antiabortionists against socialized medicine.
Ditto to antiabortionists against sex ed.
AND THE VAST MAJORITY OF THEM ARE CONSISTENTLY AGAINST ALL THESE THINGS.
(I know. Trust me, I know.)
@Historophilia: He says a bit of it in this article http://www.karolinska.se/upload/Webbsektionen/Tema%20Hj%C3%A4rna/Hj%C3%A4rnans%20utveckling.pdf (in Swedish), and writes much more about it in his book “i barnets hjärna” (in the brain of the child). I don’t know if it can be found in English… Here’s his English website: http://ki.se/ki/jsp/polopoly.jsp?d=10740&a=21337&l=en
@Howard:
At the VERY VERY LEAST any anti-abortionist should campaign for free condoms in automats at every street corner and free birth control pills and norplants for all women who want them… Seriously, such a scheme would lower the abortion rate drastically, even though abortions would still happen time to time.
At the VERY VERY LEAST any anti-abortionist should campaign for free condoms in automats at every street corner and free birth control pills and norplants for all women who want them… Seriously, such a scheme would lower the abortion rate drastically, even though abortions would still happen time to time.
That would require abortion to be the real issue they cared about.
What they are against is women being autonomous creatures; i.e. human beings like men.
@Pecunium, Dvärghundspossen
Exactly. I recently went a few rounds on abortion with a very dear family member who is, um, highly placed in the antiabortion movement.
It kept coming back to these inconsistencies. And ultimately there was no answer they could give me on those. Nothing.