Planned Parenthood, the abortion facilitators with the ambiguous name that suggests they help people plan parenthood rather than being primarily focused on terminating pregnancies is actively engaged in helping people who have made a vanity choice on whether to abort a child, based solely on the gender of the child, despite claims to the contrary.
China is a country working towards a cultural and genetic catastrophe by providing abortions based on gender selection; although, their decisions are more culturally defined, male children are expected to care for their parents during retirement, girls offer no such security, since their husband will be providing for his parents only. China limits families to one child for purposes of population control; consequently, the vanity choice for gender selection seems to be more rooted in logic than the vanity based decisions currently being made in North America.
Four states have banned vanity abortion decisions based on gender: Arizona, Illinois, Oklahoma, and Pennsylvania. However, the laws are ambiguous, since a woman can claim reasons other than vanity in those states, thanks to the lobbying efforts of Planned Parenthood, feminists, and President Obama, who lobby for a woman's ability to have an abortion on demand for any reason.
Planned Parenthood received 500 million in taxpayer funds to promote and facilitate abortion among American women. Since there are only four states that have outlawed vanity as a reason for abortion, a purely symbolic gesture at best, since the headache or many other excuses can be added to the list of reasons for wanting an abortion; thus, the laws have no practical application.
Still we as Americans, at least the 50% who pay taxes, we are now funding the choices of women to design custom families, through boutique considerations of gender. It is ironic, despite the efforts of the feminine movement fighting for gender equality, that the gender that is most often aborted is the female. Consequently, a half a billion dollars is diverted every year to Planned Parenthood to facilitate abortions on demand. You may find vanity considerations in the decision making process of abortion to be reprehensible, but this is immaterial, you are paying for it, regardless of your moral or ethical beliefs.
A professional horseman for over 50 years, Skook continues to work with horses. Skook has finished an historical novel, Fifty Thousand Years, that traces a mitochondrial line of DNA from 50,000 years ago to the present. The story follows a line of courageous women, from the Ice Ages to the present, as they meet the challenges of survival with grit and creativity. These are not women who whimper of being victims, they meet the challenges of survival as women who use their abilities without excuses or remorse, these women are winners, they are our ancestors.
Fifty Thousand Years is available in paperback and e-book, it is getting great reviews. You can purchase a copy here; Visit me on Facebook.
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TAPPER: The House is, I think, this afternoon preparing to take up a bill that would ban gender selection as a factor in abortions in this country. And I was wondering — I haven’t a statement of administration policy; I was wondering if the White House had a position on that?
CARNEY: I will have to take that as well. Been focused on other things, but I will get back to you.
Note: The White House got back to me this evening to say the president opposes the bill.
White House deputy press secretary Jamie Smith says in a statement:
-Jake Tapper
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/legislation-about-gender-selection-and-abortion-todays-q-for-os-wh-5302012/
So, Obama is going to allow American women to pick a boy and abort a girl, just like they do in China, the Middle East and lots of mideastern immigrants in a few European countries.
Oh, Goody!
Right now China has a population excess of males the size of Canada’s whole population.
If you don’t think all those men want something they can’t get, you are right.
Will we see ”Mars Needs Women,” style wars in our lifetimes?
Looks that way.
It’s hardly surprising that Obama favors allowing sex-selection abortion. Nor is it surprising that most Dems in the House do. What’s surprising is that Ron Paul crossed the aisle to okay sex selection abortions. And he had to cherry pick his constitutional passages in order to do it, too.
If he and one other nay vote had changed, the vote would have passed. Shame, shame!
Ron Paul okays sex selection abortions
Practice Promiscuity, Preach Precluded Parenthood
@Carolyn: Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, N. Korea (Oops! They are so malnourished that even a horny Chinese Communist would probably pass on invading) and Myanmar had better watch out. The Chinese males without females was already “32 million more men than women under 20 in China as of 2005”. Give them a rifle and point to the women – how else will the ChiComs deal with this disaster?
Not even any hand-wringing by “feminists” (such as they are these days) over the choice of allowing female infanticide (for all intents and purposes) versus the choice of some restriction on abortion, as perfectly reasonable as it might be.
The cynic in me thinks: the provision in the bill that would pull federal funding from any provider performing sex-selection abortions + Planned Parenthood caught in the act = bye-bye federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
How can people raise a hue and cry about some “war on women” and vote against fighting a “war on itty bitty women”? Or purport to raise consciousness about toxic environments for girls yet protect this, the most toxic environment for girls of all?
Even in Berkeley/San Francisco terms, this makes no sense.
I’m going to have to figure out a way to bring this up and watch my reflexively “progressive” acquaintances squirm. Should be easy … except I’m sure they’ve internalized all the excuses already. Had there been even a couple of days of publicity about this bill, I could have made innocent, strategically placed posts about writing your Congresswoman (mine, alas, is Barbara Lee) to back this bill and save girls’ lives. And then feigned shock at the angry responses.
These 50 for-profit clinics are probably doing a lot more gender selection than Planned Parenthood.
The whole thing was political theater — a very cleverly orchestrated “gotcha” trap.
What woman has ever stated as her reason for seeking an abortion the fact that she is doing it for gender selection? Does anyone remember reading an article citing the incidence of gender selection abortions in the USA? Women aren’t required to state a reason for having an abortion. There are a hundred plausible reasons which don’t involve gender selection.
How is this to be enforced? Now, the doctor performing an abortion is subject to 5 years of imprisonment if the abortion is for the purpose of gender selection. I suppose that abortion clinics could prepare forms in which the woman checks “Yes” or “No” to the question: “Are you having this abortion to select the gender of your future child?” So the woman checks “No.” Everything is OK, right?
A few weeks later, the woman is pouring down Tequila shots with her friends and let’s the cat out of the bag that she cleverly got herself aborted (and this would be a pretty late abortion, as ultrasound can only determine gender quite a ways down the road) so that she didn’t have to give birth to a boy. And two people overhear her and report it to the police. And the doctor has to defend him/herself in a criminal proceeding.
How is the doctor to determine the true motivations for the abortion? Lie detector tests? Truth serum? Water boarding?
Darn straight this dirty politics bill should have been voted down.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Larry:
Yes, the whole situation of gendercide is ambiguous, but does it occur? I’d say, absolutely. But it is academic, because of the multitude of reasons to justify termination and the unique problems associated with gender selection.
Political theater, perhaps, but is the Left above creating drama to illustrate a point?
St. Thomas Aquinas stated that we have natural law that guides us in achieving our goals and keeps us discerning right from wrong as we exercise free will. In this instance we are to assume that all women as well as doctors possess morality and ethics. It is a troubling situation when one person’s morality seems immoral to another, but as free people we have the freedom to choose by exercising free will, whether we discriminate between right and wrong becomes a personal matter until you infringe upon another person or ask that person to pay for your poor choices.
Gender selection in abortion is about as probable in the country as Sharia law—except in the ultra-conservative mind.
Actually, Larry, pregnant women travel to Sweden from Norway for sex selective abortion because the practice is illegal in Norway. Just as Switzerland is getting itself an unfortunate reputation for ‘suicide tourism’, Sweden is now the place to go in Europe if you want to commit gendercide.
Not just Europe, of course:
What?!
No editing?
OK, I think Steven Mosher’s number is wrong at the last, when he says 70% of female babies are killed.
1000 live births would have ~ 500 boys and 500 girls, but is having 300 girls, so that initially one might think only 40% of all the girls are killed.
But then of the 200 extra boys and no girls, there should have been an 1/2 of these girls, also so make that 50% tops of all females in the wombs of upper caste Punjabi’s aborted.
70%?
I don’t see how he gets 70%.
Maybe I’m wrong.
The mistake is in reporting 300 for every one thousand births, perhaps he meant, if the ratio is correct, of one thousand female babies, only 300 are allowed to survive: if the figure was one thousand mixed pregnancies, then the figures mean 40% of female babies are terminated in the womb.
Either way, it means that many ultra-conservative parents are electing to kill off their female children, but since ultra-conservative parents don’t generally elect to terminate pregnancies over gender, the conclusions become muddled once again.
It is hard to put ratios on the mind or the imagination, but many Liberals are predisposed to assume to know and understand the consensus of Conservative thinking. Yet to assume that physicians are above unethical or immoral motivations sand action is also pretentious; especially, since the prosecutor I just worked for, informed me that their office is well aware of doctors who make a major business out of writing pot scripts for as many as two hundred patients a day, most of whom are in their twenties. It is not the old and frail or the terminal cancer patient seeking pot prescriptions, it is the construction worker with a sore knee, who can afford the $200 fee for a script. It’s a good business if you have the license.
Hi Nan, What’s happening in Sweden or India or wherever has absolutely nothing to do with the (thankfully aborted) gender abortion bill. In the USA, there is no requirement to give a reason for abortion. Have you heard of the term “abortion on demand?” That’s what it is. And, even if one were asked the reason for having the abortion, no one is ever going to say “so I can select the gender of my child.”
It would have been an absolutely unenforceable law that would serve only to cause doctors to worry that their patients might state, after the fact, that they’d had an abortion for gender selection and then the doctor would be at risk for getting locked up in prison for 5 years. If you want to use this bill to claim that Obama favors abortion for gender selection, well that’s precisely why it was brought up in the GOP House of Representatives. It was a political gotcha bill. Nothing more; nothing less.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
And yet, the Planned Parenthood counselors in the videos circulating found nothing unusual in someone stating she wanted a sex-selection abortion. Not only that, they counseled the models on how to get someone else (taxpayers) to pay for it.
Use your common sense, man! In real life, the dialogue doesn’t go something like I want an abortion/Sure, hop up on this table. It’s more like I need an abortion for [reason].
Besides, under Roe v. Wade, at the point in pregnancy that ultrasounds can show the sex of a fetus, an abortion is legal only if there are medical reasons for it involving the woman’s health and physical well being. Dialogue happens when someone is seeking a second trimester abortion. It’s this dialog that protects a doctor from prosecution stemming from an after-the-fact admission of a sex-selection motive for the abortion – IF the doctor says no, I’m not going to do that, I’m not going to abort a fetus just because it’s female and you want a boy.
At which point, the pregnant woman finds another provider. But, in reality, there’s a good chance she’s already screened for a femicide-friendly abortionist.
The dialogue preceding a second trimester sex-selection abortion is very likely directed at confirming that word of mouth about the particular doctor performing sex-selection abortions is accurate. If the doctor in question has no qualms about doing this, the doctor then thinks, cha-ching!!! He (or she – scary thought!) will likely make a point of affirming that this is one of the services provided, in hopes of getting referrals.
So, yes, women do get asked the reason for seeking abortions, and, yes, women will say that it’s for sex selection.
Any “gotcha” factor to this bill was strictly a bonus. And it wouldn’t be to say Obama favors sex-selection abortions. It would be to point out that Obama would rather facilitate evil than see any restrictions on abortions. There are pro-choice extremists who want abortion on demand to include third trimester abortion on demand. Is a vote for Obama a vote for people like that? Opposition to this bill is circumstantial evidence for this notion.
Pro-choice people never hesitate to point out rationales for having abortions. There’s no rationale for killing off a fetus just because it’s the wrong sex. It has nothing to do with saving a woman’s life or health. It’s not even opting out of bearing a child with severe imperfections that will take a toll on the life of an entire family. It’s just an evil thing to do. Are you seriously going to fault pro-life people for trying to stop something evil on its face, something feminists having been calling evil for decades, just because you might have to acknowledge there are circumstances in which saying no to a particular abortion is the only ethical thing to do?
Do you have slippery-slope-aphobia?
Do you even realize that in dissing this bill, and the motives of its backers, you are flipping off not only feminists but Roe v. Wade?
That, my friend, is a gotcha. You’ve punked yourself.
Hi Beth,
I don’t at all buy your arguments. The fact that there are some people working for Planned Parenthood who have poor ethics and poor judgement doesn’t in any way change the fact that women are, number one, not even required to state a reason for having an abortion, number two, not given lie detector tests in stating their reason for having an abortion, and, number three, faced with no shortage of plausible alternative reasons, if asked.
You asked me to use common sense. I’ll ask you to do the same. “My husband and I initially hoped that we could have this child, but we are having some trouble with our marriage now, and it’s really not fair to bring a child into what could end up being a broken home.” “My husband is now worried about losing his job and it’s really a bad time for us to be having a child.” “I’m not married and my boyfriend was initially supportive, but now I’m going to have to raise this child all alone and I’m really not ready for it.”
Both you and I could come up with 96 other socially acceptable reasons. I didn’t even scratch the surface with respect to plausible medically related reasons.
If there were laws against gender selection, no one would ever admit to this. The reason for opposing the bill has nothing at all to do with preventing gender selection abortions. The law wouldn’t do anything to prevent these abortions. But they would put physicians in jeopardy of going to prison for 5 years, if their patients lied to them, which is something over which the physicians would have no control.
I don’t understand your last sentence. I’m having a serious and respectful discussion. You want to turn it into a pi-sing contest. No thanks.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
Hi, Larry. All the examples you give of abortion cover stories are stories someone would give if she were intent upon having an abortion when she goes to the clinic.
Women aborting for sex selection are intent on having an abortion when they go to the clinic ONLY IF tests show they’re carrying a girl. If the tests show they’re carrying a boy, they don’t go through with the abortion.
In this case, the cover story would have to be that they want to be sure they’re going to have a normal, healthy baby. If the tests show a normal, healthy female baby, and they say they want to abort, well, they’ve been caught in a lie, haven’t they? If they use any of your cover stories, tests show a normal, healthy male baby, and they say they don’t want to abort, they’ve also been caught in a lie, haven’t they?
Circumstances like this put a physician in an “or reasonable should have known” the abortion was for sex selection situation, not a ha-ha I got over on this abortionist so I could have a boy not a girl, pass the tequila situation.
Did the authors of this bill want to catch innocent medical personnel, or did they want to at least stop some of the most egregiously evil abortions? Consider the belief systems of pro-lifers. What matters to them? The belief that abortion takes an innocent human life. This is more likely the motivation for this bill than a political gotcha.
A gotcha of forcing pro-choice legislators to go on record with votes that tarnish their “pro-woman” images? Well, that, maybe. And it would be a good thing.
Hi Beth. My wife had two babies, preceded by two ultrasounds. In neither case was the ultrasound performed at an abortion clinic. If we had wanted to gender select, we could have gone to any abortion clinic thereafter and requested an abortion. We could have given any of a hundred plausible reasons. There is no requirement to disclose whatever tests, if any, were performed at any other medical facility. It’s impossible to prove what is in the heart of a woman at the time she requests an abortion. As I wrote: lie detector? truth serum? water boarding?
Just as an illustration, I did a little Google search about women’s reactions to ultrasound. Traditionally, ultrasounds have been found to improve mother/unborn child bonding. But this generalization isn’t universal, for e.g.
http://community.babycenter.com/post/a22489181/not_excited_at_ultrasound_confession
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
CluelessWoman · Pass a Note!
Posted 04/23/2010
I feel like the worst soon-to-be mother ever.
We had our 18 week ultrasound, and the last time we saw him was at 13 weeks and it was pretty cool…he was moving around, all that good stuff. This time they just inspected various organs, there wasn’t a single clear shot of him, of course his face looked all skeletal…
I love my child inside of me, but iwasn’t emotional or crying or all excited at what i was seeing. I just don’t feel CONNECTED with him. I actually plannedt his, i wanted a baby for years, but going off Wellbutrin really took me for a loop (maybe i’ll go back on in the 3rd trimester, but not just yet).
Confession: complete strangers are more excited over my pregnancy than I am. Friends, strangers, whoever seem to gush and get all giddy when they see me, ask me questions and all of that. Whereas i’m like “so anyway, did anyone catch Dancing with the Stars last night on tv….”. I just don’t understand why everyone else seems to be excited, and i’m his MOTHER, and i just want this pregnancy over with.
<<<<<<<<<<
Now, one can imagine this woman stewing in her own juices for a few more days and then deciding that she wanted her pregancy over with — immediately.
No one could ever prove what was in the woman's heart, were she to seek her abortion on demand. Was it because she wanted a girl or was it because the more pregnant she got, the more depressed she got?
It was an unenforceable bill, introduced only as a political gotcha. Just like the bill the Democrats introduced in the Senate to guarantee, ostensibly, equal pay for work of equal value for men and women. Likewise an unenforceable bill, introduced only to make the other party look bad.
Larry W/HB
Actually, while it quite obviously continued the “War on Women” meme for use in this year’s election, I do believe a major motivation for the bill that would put the burden of proof re sex discrimination in employment on employers was indeed to equalize paycheck outcomes. Life itself doesn’t do that, because men and women by and large make different life/work balance choices that affect earnings. Was your statement mere cynicism, or an admission of cynical politics?
You mentioned a check box on a form re sex selection. Actually, once the lawyers got done with it (and they would), it would be much more involved than a check box, in order to indemnify doctors both honest and dishonest. Likely, there would be an individual section describing the law; instead of a checkbox, there would be lines for signing and dating an affirmation that the abortion was not for sex selection, and “By signing this agreement, I verify that …”
While people lie, what such a detailed part of a treatment authorization In any criminal case, that little word “knowingly” comes into play. You can’t convict without proving mens rea, criminal intent. What thorough language and verifications in consent forms do is demonstrate due diligence on the part of the medical provider, sufficient to create plenty of reasonable doubt in the event of legal action. Sufficient also to convince prosecutors not to use up their limited budgets on cases that would be tricky to prove. That being the case, the administration’s statement about subjecting doctors to criminal prosecution if they fail to ascertain intent is patently disingenuous.
Meanwhile, there have been stories in Canadian media about sex selection abortions in immigrant communities that strongly favor sons over daughters, and about Canadian feminists hesitating to support crackdowns on this evil practice for fear of giving way at all on abortion rights. Can you not credit pro-lifer politicians with wanting to prevent that trend from getting traction in this country? If abortion in the U.S. is indeed going to be “safe, legal and rare,” the rare part is going to be due to the vigilance of the people for whom it’s not a casual matter. While there are pro-choice people who take the Roe v. Wade trimester framework seriously, for the most part it’s pro-lifers with the non-frivolous approach to abortion (unfortunately). This has been evidenced by pro-choice stances on Born Alive Infant Protection Acts, namely opposition to acts that do nothing to restrict abortions.
Perhaps the cynicism it took to denounce and vote against such acts has colored your perceptions. Or, perhaps you are projecting your “gotcha” bill cynicism onto others, and onto others like Skookum, who can discuss this bill with a reference to Aquinas. (An ace outdoorsman who quotes Aquinas … Skookum, have I told you lately that you rock?)
Hi Beth,
That’s the whole point. Ante-partum depression occurs in 27% of all pregnant women. The reason why abortion opponents don’t want exceptions for “the health of the mother” is because it is a vaguely nebulous term. Yet it’s a term which is broadly accepted, by all but ardent anti-abortionists. And this is only one plausible reason for seeking an abortion (physical health or mental health). I can come up with 96 others. It’s impossible to prove intent, given all the possibilities. Yet I have previously given only one of scores of scenarios where doctors could be put at risk (and women, too, for that matter). Were the law in place, the clever people of the world would quickly come up with a hundred strategies for defeating it, all of which rely on the fact that it’s utterly impossible to determine and prove intent, absent a signed confession — especially recognizing that criminal convictions require unanimous verdicts, beyond reasonable doubt.
It was just the sort of terrible, can of worms legislation as are the equal pay for work of equal value laws.
But I’ll make you (Beth) a deal. I’ll stipulate that some honest conservative legislators supported the proposed non-gendercide law out of true conviction, if you’ll stipulate the same for liberals regarding the proposed equal pay for work of equal value law.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
“Actually, while it quite obviously continued the ‘War on Women’ meme for use in this year’s election, I do believe a major motivation for the bill that would put the burden of proof re sex discrimination in employment on employers was indeed to equalize paycheck outcomes.”
I did stipulate to true conviction on the part of the authors of the pay bill. I did so before you did, Larry, because you called it a gotcha bill.
To get me to agree that the anti-sex selection abortion bill was a “terrible, can of worms legislation,” you would have to show me that the legislators drafting it thought through all the ways in which a woman seeking a sex-selection abortion could hoodwink honest doctors, and drafted their bill based on that strategy and analysis just to play gotcha, not to fight gendercide.
You would also have to convince me that any doctor approached for such an abortion would be an honest doctor. As I’ve pointed out before, the easiest way to find a doctor dishonest and dishonorable enough to perform a sex selection abortion is to find one through word-of-mouth referrrals. With a referral to such a scumbag, a woman could be candid instead of spending time, energy and worry strategizing a path to successful gendercide. Never underestimate the appeal of the path of least resistance, especially where scumbags (sex selection abortionist and sex selection abortion seeker) are involved.
Yes, clever people will attempt to get around the law, and some will succeed. That’s true with any law. Where in the Constitution does it say legislators can’t propose a law unless they can prove nobody will be able to get around it?
We are talking around each other, in circles. You keep insisting that there is an easy way to know for sure what is in the heart of a woman who asks for an abortion and, therefore, unscrupulous doctors are required. I believe it’s self-evident that there are a hundred plausible reasons a woman could give which have nothing at all to do with gender selection. This should be self-evident to you and to the legislatures who proposed the bill. It was terrible legislation and it was largely introduced simply for the purpose of getting Senate Democrats on record as ostensibly supporting gender selection abortion.
Now I’ve said the same thing about four times and you’ve said the same thing three times. To be fair, I invite you to say the same thing for the 4th time and I’ll agree to stop at that point. If you want to take two turns in a row, to get ahead, 5 times to 4, kindly be my guest.
Thank you for the exchange of views.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA (Southeast of Los Angeles; West of Anaheim; with warmer water and much better surf than SF Bay)
I agree we’re going around in circles, and when I got notice of a new post, posting that I’m done with this discussion was the first thing on my mind. If I’m understanding your argument correctly, you’re saying (1) motivation for seeking an abortion can be hidden and will be hidden in the event of a morally questionable motive, (2) doctors are therefore always and in every instance passive instruments with no ability to make moral choices of their own about any given abortion they are asked to perform, (3) the legislators made the same analysis as you did, (4) this analysis played a key factor in their decision to draft the bill, (5) because their prime (and only) motive was finding a way to push a gotcha bill that would play to social conservative voters in the 2012 presidential election.
Working this back, I’d say:
(5) The legislators were primarily motivated by reports of sex-selection abortions successfully obtained by immigrants to the West from countries in which gendercide has social support, and a desire to nip this abhorrent practice in the bud in the U.S. Any “gotcha” campaign benefit would be for electing people with a similar view on the practice of sex-selection abortion, and to some extent abortion in general, above and beyond promoting a particular party. If they did any risk/benefit analysis, it would tell them that this bill might lose social liberal-fiscal conservative voters (though it’s not losing this one). It’s more likely this was over principle much more than pragmatism.
(4) Again, there is a principle involved here. It’s much more likely their decision to draft the bill was OMG, sex-selection abortions gaining traction because of “diversity”? than it was, Hmmm, what can we nail the liberals on? Hmmm, how about sex-selection abortions?
(3) If they did see doctors as passive victims of cruel women, they could have done a “war on women” bill. You might say that would backfire, so they picked on the doctors. I think this bill presupposes that the doctors are capable of being moral agents, and recognizes that they are financial agents. Doctors can and do make decisions about the abortions they perform (including “none of the above”). Otherwise, the demand for third trimester abortions would be met by more doctors than that murderer in Pennsylvania.
(2) See (3) above. Also, there are doctors who will perform abortions other doctors won’t because they (a) can kick a** in market share and/or (b) are ideologues promoting a woman’s right to control her own body no matter what. They are not grunts in the abortion army, as it were.
(1) I agree it’s possible, in some instances, to hide motivation and/or get an abortion from a doctor who doesn’t care and won’t ask. As a practical matter, there can be advantages to being upfront about seeking a sex-selection abortion among people one calculates it is safe to query. I mean, there’s an advantage to being upfront about seeking marijuana around hippies or stoners: they can and likely will put you in touch with a dealer. Same thing with sex-selection abortions and being upfront around people who share the same “values” of preferring sons to daughters by any means necessary. There can be advantages, in terms of getting what a gendercidal couple wants, to being upfront about motivation.
And following on is this: Since there are advantages to seekers and providers to be upfront about sex-selection abortions, there will be plenty of scumbags to prosecute without playing criminal “gotcha” with hoodwinked doctors. If prosecutors pick this low-hanging fruit, their chances are better at stopping sex-selection abortion, first through taking the main providers off the street and second through frightening off the dabblers or potential dabblers. I think this is how the legislators presumed the law would work. It’s how so many other criminal laws work in practice.
You’re the only one arguing your points here. I don’t see anyone backing you up. I think that says you haven’t made your argument. People here do get to agree with me, if they so choose, on the strength of my arguments; they don’t have to disprove yours to reject yours. Your POV is not an accurate analysis until proven otherwise; it’s just an opinion.
And, BTW, I’m told by people who grew up in Huntington that the water really isn’t warm but for part of the summer. As far as surf goes, there’s a reason the Mavericks contest is held in Northern California. I do know where Huntington is, and I know the mileage from my house to Santa Cruz 🙂
Hi Beth, I won ‘t go back on my word to allow you to have the last word on this “gendercide” argument.
The only thing I will say is that, on this particular blog, you can’t claim victory based on reaction from the peanut gallery (what the audience was called on the old Howdy Doody TV show; I’m probably the only one old enough to understand the relevance of this reference). This is FLOPPING ACES, for goodness sake. It’s not CNN, or NPR, or CBS, or the WSJ, or even FOX (which has at least a small non-conservative audience). F/A is a conservative’s conservative blog, albeit more focused on national security and economics than on issues like abortion and gay marriage. I’ve been posting here since September of 2008 — probably into the thousands of posted comments. If you base my “score” on the ratio of “votes” between me and the people with whom I’ve debated, I’m probably down something like 2,148 to 3. I may not be the world’s greatest debater, but I’m not that bad.
What’s good about this particular blog is that the vast majority of people treat you decently, even when not in agreement. I like mutually respectful debate; most people here go along with that, and I do thank you for being so thoughtful.
One last thing: there’s only one true, original “Surf City” in California, and it sure ain’t Santa Cruz.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA
I like Flopping Aces for the same reasons you do, the economics and national security. If you think I’m out for a debate “victory” here, you’ve completely misread my comments. You have failed to convince me of your point of view on this matter. You write about people treating each other decently here, only after having carried on as though your analysis of the introduction of this bill is the only possible logical one. The only point I’ve been trying to make is that it’s possible this bill had a decent amount of honest, non-gotcha intent, and that the prime motivation for introducing it could very well have been humanitarian.
It’s your insistence the “only” motivation was political gotcha, and your appar3ent discomfort at anyone disagreeing with you, that *may* have made this thread an un-FA-like one. I appreciate your having spurred me on to give this issue more thought and analyze it more deeply. But then, when I pay attention to abortion issues, I generally look to come up with a nuanced analysis just because I’m usually in a situation, ’round these parts, of trying to pry pro-choice women away from an absolutist view and getting them to consider that not every abortion is an exercise of freedom, and that not every circumscription of abortion rights is nothing but a war on women.
When I read a post on a conservative site agreeing with the knee-jerk pro-choice view that a bill against sex-selection abortions has no actual merit but is simply a political maneuver, I know my life has just gotten a little harder. I actually got kicked off a women’s event listserv years ago because someone else was flaming me for saying it was a pity NARAL opposed the Born Alive Infant Protection Act and that it was inhuman of them to have done so.
I don’t like sharing my thoughts only to be told I don’t know what I’m talking about.
Hi Beth,
I never said/did that. You began this dialog by attacking my previously stated point of view. All I did thereafter was to defend my point of view. And I certainly never claimed that my analysis was “the only possible logical one.” I never disrespected your views nor deprecated you or your thinking. I simply disagreed with you (and let you have the last word in the debate on the “gendercide” bill). If I’m wrong about this, point me in the direction of where I said/did that, and I’ll apologize.
– Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach CA