NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/talk/abortion/54995

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-10 | 9.9 KB

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From: "James F. Tims" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Christian Pro-Choicers
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Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 05:51:30 GMT
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>FROM:   Doug Holtsinger <[e-mail]>
>
>In article <[e-mail]>
>"James F. Tims" <[e-mail]> writes:
>
>> Nice work, you dishonest little weasel. Trim your own quote to remove the
>> idiotic implication without even indicating deletions, then cut the part
>> of my response that points it out.  Intellectual slime-ball.

>
>The part of your response that pointed out the "idiotic
>implication" was buried in an unreadable .signature, and
>I usually don't read .sigs.  It's normally proper etiquette
>to delete .signatures, but I'm sorry if I misrepresented
>your post.

The .sig was getting old anyway.  (Never was totally happy with it,
actually.)  About the best that can be said for my response is that I
didn't resort to scatology.  It was typically (for me) overheated, and
as I usual I feel it necessary to apologize in the face of a sane reply.

>
>> You had added that the Civil Rights Act passed 8 months later.  I
>> extrapolated from your implied prediction that abortion would be
>> outlawed within 6 months, tongue in cheek.  Of course, my point was that
>> your analogy sucks rocks.
>
>No, that was not my analogy, that was your analogy.

Your analogy equated the demonstrations of the CR Movement with fetus
hoisting, the root of the comparison resting in disapproval ratings of the
methods used.  As I understood it, fetus hoisting would be found,
in the judgement of years to come, to be as acceptable a form of protest
as a black person using a whites-only bathroom in defiance of the law.
I will guess that the rationale involves the expectation that people
will finally come to their senses, outlaw abortion, and then, looking back
(with lightbulbs over their heads and expressions of sudden realization on
their faces) see that fetus hoisting  wasn't such a bad thing after all. My
parallel prediction was a joke aimed at the context of your analogy
which implied (inadvertently, which provided the joke's limited humor content)
that abortion would soon be illegal.  Just as the CR Act passed within 8
months after the 60% disapproval polling of CR Movement methods, so too would
abortion be banned in the face of my 80% estimated disapproval rating for
fetus hoisting.  If the inverse ratio held, then the greater the
disapproval rating, the faster the legislation would pass into law.  My
estimate was 6 months for anti-abortion legislation to sweep through
Congress and the Supreme Court challenges.  [Insert canned laughter.]

I was upset that you removed the punchline, even though I suppose it
wasn't really all that funny.  My churlish indignation arose not so much from
being misquoted as from being made to appear stupid.  Not that I'm not stupid,
just that I don't need to be made to appear even stupider than I actually am.
What you left in had no meaning whatever, so instead of an unfunny joke I
was saddled with total incomprehensibility.

Many more people now than then do believe that all races should have equal
protection and treatment under the law, and that the legally oppressed people
of the '60s had every right (on retrospect) to break the laws that oppressed
them.  I find no moral problem with fetus hoisting.  I think they should
hoist Cardinal O'Connor's fat cadaver around, too, while they're at it.
(That would be too, too funny.  Talk about busy keyboards in Netland!)
But I ramble.  I am not even grossed out, personally, by fetus hoisting
_per se_, but many people are and always will be completely grossed out by
the practice, regardless of the state of the abortion laws.  I will
admit to quibbling, to shifting the ground somewhat.  While your analogy
no doubt intends to imply that fetus hoisting will be proven justified by its
inexorable political result, with no regard to whether the practice
was still deemed disgusting or not, my analogy emphasizes the primordial
element of human nature that often finds human corpses of any size unsettling.
No matter how racist, people were not afflicted by the operating room gag
reflex on seeing a black girl in a whites-only school room.

The methods of the CR Movement seemed necessary in the context of what
they were trying to achieve, i.e., they were doing what the law denied
them, in spite of the laws.  Fetus hoisting has little purpose beyond
inflaming the crowd to violence.  It is in bad taste.  It offends people
in an ugly way that singing protest songs does not.  IMO, it is pure
hatemongering.


>
>> Let me be more explicit in expanding the imaginary
>> example:
>>
>> 1962: "Let's leave, Martha."
>>
>> 1992: "I think I'm going to vomit, Martha -- oh -- you alread have, I see."
>
>I don't see the relevance of this imaginary example.

Hopefully it has become more clear.

>
>> The methods of the Civil Rights Movevment were not, in and of themselves,
>> repellent.
>
>That's because history has passed judgement on the protest tactics
>of the Civil Rights era.  You can sit here today, and say that
>they were not repellent because history has borne that out to
>be the truth.  At the time, many people disapproved of the protest
>tactics, including those who supported Civil Rights reforms.
>
I'm saying that few Aunt Marthas will change their minds in the years to
come.  Fetus hoisting will continue to be seen as a disgusting activity, even
if justifiable, somewhat in the same league with a forensic _post mortem_.

>> Marching, singing "We Shall Overcome" (well, that one almost made
>> me puke -- just hate the song 8^), and riding in the front
>> of the bus did not cause people to faint from horror.
>
>That's irrelevant, see above.

No it isn't.  See above.

>
>> The vile insensitivity
>> of fetus hoisting reflects the pitiless hatred and moral bankruptcy
>> of those holding your opinion.
>
>You're welcome to your opinion, but I'm not ready to pass judgement
>on those protest tactics yet.  Values have a tendency to change.

The gag reflex is not normally considered part of the human value
system, although I suppose one could make an argument for it.


>
>> The Civil Rights Movement was
>> non-violent by design, and when it turned into nasty riots, as when they
>> burned down U Street in DC after M.L. King was murdered, the actions
>> were condemned by the leadership.  Fire-bombing the clinics is part of
>> the organized strategy of anti-abortion groups.
>
>Pro-lifers have consistently condemned this violence.  I challenge
>you to point to one pro-lifer on talk.abortion who approves of
>this violence.

You win.  I can't.  I take it back.  The fire bombers are in the same
class as the rioters, as far as I know.

>
>> Pro-lifers are, collectively,
>> little more than sick, ignorant, violent, lawless vigilante gangs.
>
>Let's go back 30 years or so, and replace "pro-lifers" with
>"civil rights activists" in your statement above.  What do
>you get?

Nonsense.  The only adjective correctly used in common would be "lawless", and
though the case is clear enough that African Americans (or any race, but
the CR Movement was primarily run by them) should have equal
citizenship. It is not at all so clear that a 6 week old collection of
cells is a U.S. citizen that should have rights equal to the mother.

>
>> from "Perspective: Anti-abortion and Religion", Betty McCollister,
>> _Free Inquiry_, Winter '86,
>>
>> As the abortion battle waxes more glandular and violent, it is easy to
>> forget what a new battle it is, especially in its religious aspects.
>
>Notice that the author focuses most of her attention on
>the more controversial aspects of the pro-life movement.
>Nowhere does she offer a rational argument in support of
>abortion rights--all her attention is focused on pro-lifers.

Because that was the subject of her article, because the length of the
article was one page, and because the purpose of the article was to show
that religious arguments for anti-abortion activities were bogus she
did not deal with trying to support abortion rights.  She was merely
debunking one obviously misguided perception that religion has held the
anti-abortion high ground all along.  She also didn't deal with cake
decorating or how to change a spare tire, because neither was the
subject of her exegesis.

>Notice that the author attempts to portray abortion as a
>religious issue, which it is not.

Of course not. It's a legal issue.  Religious groups are trying to change
the law.  That was a priest hosting the fetus, if memory serves.

[...]
>> The quoted article is for others on the thread, since I doubt you
>> will even take the time to read it.

Sorry.  Despicable tactics on my part.  Retch!

>
>No, I read the whole thing.  I thought it was garbage.
>

_De gustibus non disputandem_.  Or something like that.

>> If I have failed to offend you, I at least gave it my best shot.
>
>Sorry, I don't get offended easily.  You'll have to try much harder.
>

I guess!  Pretty puny shot now that I reread it.  8^)

[Massive deletions...]

I read your article on Nazi abortions.  Its comparisons to the American
situation are complete sheepdip,  and I don't want to argue about
Hitler.  There's already a thread for that where they've been throwing
out quotes right and left.  Mine may have even been a duplicate, now
that I think about it, and I should have left it out.  I just saw it and
quoted it impetuously.

And I'm not going to argue about this any more, either.  Once again,
Doug, sorry to have gone over the edge.  I don't agree with you one
little bit, but you sure won the courtesy contest.

-jim