GWB hates women
 

birth control pills = "abortion."

i imagine bush is sitting there, counting down the days until the end of his term, checking off his to-do list. his red pen is hovering anxiously over two of the entries, salivating for the moment when he finally gets to make his mark:

1) bomb iran
2) strip women of their rights

and condoleeza rice is standing obediently next to him, holding a sweating glass of celebratory scotch on the rocks, ready and waiting for that victorious swig.

god i hate these people.

Re: GWB hates women
 

He really is quite bonkers, isn't he?

I am utterly speechless. I can only hope that this ridiculous Bill never sees the light of day.

Roll on November.

Re: GWB hates women
 

This is pretty ridiculous. Birth control pills are lumped in with abortion? Whatever.

I can't say I think it's fair to say Bush hates women because of it....I'm sure he would justify this stance by saying the issue is more that he loves babies....but it's doing women no favors all the same. And men for that matter too. I know it's obviously the women who conceive, but men are far too frequently left out of the parenthood equation in discussions about who's affected by this stuff.

Re: GWB hates women
 

eliminating women's access to health care is the same thing as hating women. it is a horrible misogynistic thing to do.

Re: GWB hates women
 

january. he's still in office until january. he's got 6.5 more months of bushing it up a notch.

Re: GWB hates women
 

Well one, he's not "eliminating women's access to healthcare". He's equating birth control with abortion, which I agree is stupid, but that's a much narrower act than your broad statement implies.

Two, I know it may seem like semantics, but I always have a problem when anyone assumes that x must mean y, even if there is no direct correlation between the two. That's what frequently leads to things like unfounded charges of racism, or sexism, or the majority of stupid "gaffes" made by political candidates, etc. And even in Bush's case, while there are clearly many reasons to dislike him, I think we should still limit our reasons to factual issues rather than assumptions. I'm a big fan of accuracy, and it's simply inaccurate and unfounded to conclude that Bush equating birth control pills with abortion must mean that Bush hates women. But then maybe I'm wrong - can you illustrate the direct connection that would prove the accuracy of your conclusion?

Re: GWB hates women
 

what about babies' rights?!?

Just kidding.

Re: GWB hates women
 

i know everyone is itching to do this, so i'll just relieve the tension and get it out of the way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kJHQpvgB8

Re: GWB hates women
 

i already illustrated my proof. restricting or eliminating women's access to health care = policy that is detrimental specifically to women. it solely discriminates against women, it solely keeps women in a place of poorer health care access than men. you cannot be interested in preserving the rights or welfare of women if this is your idea of fair policy. thus, it is a woman hating policy.

ipso facto.

if bush were to enact a policy that specifically and solely restricted or eliminated african americans' access to health care we wouldn't be having this discussion. but once again we're going to quibble over it because hey, it's just chicks.

Re: GWB hates women
 

Bush's view on this is absolutely LOATHSOME. It disgusts me.

I have no desire whatsoever to defend Bush. He's certainly placing women's rights BELOW other factors he considers more important.

However this isn't about defending Bush. It's about defending logic.

This might be something that someone who hates women would do.
It doesn't logically follow that someone who does this must hate women.

Someone may consider x more important than y. That doesn't mean they hate y.

Bush may hate women, but your logic doesn't prove it.

Draw a proper analogy with African Americans or homosexuals and the same logic will apply.

Re: GWB hates women
 

right.. i might not always cut up all 6 pack soda rings, doesn't mean I hate water fowl.

Re: GWB hates women
 

screw everyone. i'll take up the debate with anyone else woke up at 5 a.m. starving half to death with 4 legs kicking the shit out of their cervix.

i'm cranky. i'll apologize in october.

Re: GWB hates women
 

I almost want to agree with you just for that. ;)

Re: GWB hates women
 

i know sean is all about "call a spade a spade but only when it's undeniably a spade and not potentially a club in disguise" but i have to go with cacophony.
it's not the kind of hate that consumes someone and result in x legislation, but i think you have to have a healthy contempt for women, as religious views tend to coerce you into, to strip them of their right to do whatever the hell they want with their own body without crusty old men trying to thinly disguise their control issues over it with this sort of bullshit.

but also, just to prove how singular-minded this is:
any of the various procedures -- including the prescription and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action -- that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation

means that masturbation is an abortion, and even more technically, millions of abortions. LOLOLOLOLOLOL.
there's a thousand things a fetus can do while it's developing. one of them is to actually turn into a cancerous tumor. sacred!

Re: GWB hates women
 

Point taken. ;)

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Heh!

Yeah, babies have rights. Foetuses have rights when they start to be babies, although those rights need to be balanced with the mother's rights too. Unidentifiable lumps of cells that have no possible means of developing into a proper foetus without their "hosts", much less posess a brain or feelings, can't really be said to have rights that are dissociated from the rights of the "host" mother.


Cacophony - the last three months of pregnancy are pretty cool, as far as I remember, although I only had one of the little blighters practicing judo kicks and giving me a hiatus hernia. The time will fly by. I have two bits advice: 1) Get as much rest as you can now, because once they are born you will be tired for the rest of your life, no matter how much sleep you get and 2) Don't ever listen to anyone else's advice, including mine, because only you know how to be a mother to your own children :D

Re: GWB hates women
 

This is exactly where I tend to part ways with many on the pro-choice side of things - and please bear in mind that I myself am pro-choice, I just flatly disagree with assertions that this is about a woman's "right to do whatever the hell they want with their own body". The foundation of the argument from the pro-life side of things is built on the idea of providing rights for the unborn baby, not on depriving a woman of her right to do do whatever she wants with her own body. Clearly, the woman's body is involved in the deal, but that doesn't inherently make the position that fetuses have rights a misogynistic one.

And again, I don't agree with the pro-life stance overall, but I do think it's important to understand and acknowledge where your opponent is actually coming from in order to constructively move forward on issues. If we continue to throw around accusations like this that miss the reality, then all we're going to accomplish is more animosity as we spin off on unrelated tangents. A good analogy that's happening right now is conservatives continually accusing Obama of wanting to "surrender" in Iraq, when in fact his plan is not one of surrender at all. It's about handing control of Iraq back to Iraqis as we clearly should be doing, freeing up our troops to focus on al Qaeda, and finishing the job we started, and actually are currently beginning to lose in Afghanistan. To constantly call it "surrender" is untrue and derails the constructive dialogue we need to be having about it.

On this, you and I completely agree. This is extremely flawed reasoning on Bush's part, and I couldn't disagree with him more.

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the crazy thing is, there's no saying i have 3 months left. with two it's sort of anyone's game. tomorrow is week 25, so we've hit viability, after that we keep our fingers crossed and i send psychic lectures to my uterus, telling it to stay put until at least week 36. but frankly, we just have to hold on and hope and be thankful for every week that goes by that they don't decide it's time to make their arrival.

BULLSHIT! i have no idea how to be a mother to my own children! i figure i'm just going to wing it.

Re: GWB hates women
 

this is my thinking, but you said it better than i would at this point.

Re: GWB hates women
 

if a man beats the shit out if his wife but believes it's for her own good, would you also believe he's not misogynistic?

this goes back to that same old argument about intent versus interpretation. holding someone hostage out of the belief that it accomplishes some good does not absolve you of the guilt of holding that person hostage. it doesn't make you "not a hostage holder."

stripping women of their right to control their bodies, particularly in this instance (because let's not forget we're talking about access to basic contraception) is tantamount to holding all women hostage. no matter how you slice it.

men have no equivalent. no other segment of the human population on earth has an equivalent. women are the only people who can be held hostage in this way. and we keep making excuses about the betterment of society or what god would want or whether fetuses have rights, but you can never ever ever ever abstract the discussion to the point where you remove the element where women are held hostage by these restrictions.

i say this as someone who has always been pro choice and will always be pro choice. but i also say this as someone who is currently in the midst of one of the most profound experiences that anyone can go through. i am just at the end of 24 weeks of pregnancy. that means over 8 weeks ago i started feeling two independent lives start moving inside of my abdominal cavity, and that right this very moment they even react semi-intelligently to outside stimulus. we are far beyond a cluster of undifferentiated cells.

but as someone at 24 weeks i am startlingly aware that legally these two lives could still be terminated if i so chose, both in the US and the UK. remember that 3D image i posted? is that a fetus or is that a baby? it's hard to say. for me, experiencing it first hand, it's an absolute rubber-meets-the-road point in the debate between the right to life and the right to choose. it would not be possible for me to make light of the issue, i promise you that.

so when i say a woman's right to control her own body and her right to choose and her right to have access to birth control are basic fundamental human rights, and when i say denying women that right is tantamount to holding every woman hostage, i say that without levity or blase dismissal of the issue at hand.

for once my intention is not hyperbole. you can slice and dice the issue and try to play devil's advocate and try to create definitions of misogyny that allow for the mistreatment of women so long as someone else stands to benefit, but it all boils down to one thing: when you remove a woman's right to control her own body, you hold that woman hostage and deny her the basic right of "self" that every man on earth possesses without question. that is misogyny. that is hating women. period.

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I'm safe there too as it appears many have been collecting from me for years now.

Wonder how many anti-abortionists change their minds now?

Re: GWB hates women
 

it does when you shave the ambiguity-hedging and it boils down to whether women are people enough to decide what to do with a parasite growing in them. the point with that 'tumor' statement in the last post was that fetuses are primarily in development. they're meant to become babies, but could do a lot of things: turn ectopic, become lethal, spontaneously abort. i think as long as its growth is physically dependant on a woman to continue developing in the womb, it should be that woman's choice alone what to do with it. is it the best thing to ever happen to you? cool. are you repulsed by it and want it the fuck out of there? awesome. is this going to be a really hard decision that you'll be torn about? damn. do you want to prevent the whole fucking thing in the first place? fantastic. but whatever the decision is, i think it should be supported by the best medical care available. because otherwise it's telling the women who make the "wrong" decision according to dudely govt. to get fucked.
which is why it's so transparent that this godbag legislation is so unambiguously hateful and misogynistic.

Re: GWB hates women
 

:)

misogyny - noun: hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women.


QED.

Re: GWB hates women
 

oh and cacophony, i dont know if you really *want* to hear this, but a friend of mine gave birth on the cusp of viability and one year later the kid doing extremely well for itself.
just thought i'd share.

Re: GWB hates women
 

But you're not actually proving any point here about it being inherently misogynistic. All you're doing is giving your stance on abortion and then claiming that this stance is somehow proof that anyone who disagrees must therefore be a misogynist. But the fact is, women simply aren't at the core of the issue in this debate from the pro-life point of view. What's at the core of the issue is the problem that pro-lifers would have with you labeling a fetus as a "parasite". Of course technically, a fetus IS a parasite, but referring to it as such is pretty clearly meant as a means of de-humanizing it, and that's where the difference in ideologies lies - not in feelings towards women.

Pro-choice = the fetus is a lump of cells for a significant enough portion of pregnancy that, if circumstances warrant, we should be allowed to abort.

Pro-life = the fetus is immediately an innocent, human baby who should be protected from being killed.

And to take it a step further, if I followed your logic on the misogyny issue, I could then go ahead and say that clearly, you must hate men. Because all you're talking about here is the rights of a woman, but you're completely ignoring what the fathers of aborted babies may want, so clearly, you have no regard for men and must hate them. Would that be a fair or accurate conclusion for me to reach? Or, to be more direct about it, should pro-lifers conclude that because your concern lies primarily with women, you must hate babies.

Re: GWB hates women
 

1. i cant *prove* misogyny because i'm not a woman. all i have is observations and opinions based off of them. if i'm off then okay i'd like for it to make sense otherwise one day, but two dudes arguing about what it is seems a little ludicrous to me. if you want to logically 'prove' institutionalized discrimination then i bet you can find people of all beliefs using different brands of 'logic' to swing their way. or you could just take the hard truth from those who get it in their face all day. and, i guess, be smart enough to distinguish bullshit from whats real and problematic

2. your aim is productivity, and that these people have legitimate, or at least understandable, grounding and should be heard because theyre here whether we like it or not and the sooner we live together the easier this will be. my ground is that theyre fucking retards holding back all things good and decent and should be the last people given clout or compromised with.

3. i dont believe that. i think they might believe superficially that it is, but i'm cynical and really think it stems from a long line of maintaining some form of control. again, opinion. a vehement one, but an opinion nonetheless

4. i think this is only an issue if dad doesnt have the resources to care for the kid and she still wants to have it. how this would happen is a little baffling, since no mom who wants a kid bad enough is also going to want to raise them up with nothing to give them, but who knows. but as far as having a say before a woman gets an abortion, i say it's ridiculous. guys planting one seed out of a lifetime supply compared to months of exhaustive care, risk, and obsessive health monitoring aka: doing the whole fucking thing? gtf-outta here, that's borderline facetious. you haven't done shit and dont pretend you have some conceptual say to bridge the dissonance. i dont hate men, because i dont hate myself, but i'll call a spade if it smells like one, and it's a long road to prove otherwise. i hate many MANY aspects of dudely culture and rationalization that dont sit right with me at all and keep me perpetually malcontent. and i think as long as it's that cuture that sitting comfortably meting out media, priveleges, and graciously allowing everyone else to function like they do, there's going to be problems. it's got nothing to do with gender, but what's running the hideous custerfuck currently running.

Re: GWB hates women
 

Well at least we're at the core of our differences on it now, which is that I think it's important to fairly recognize the motivations behind what people with differing opinions do and say, and you, by your own admission, prefer to assign your own pre-conceived assumptions to people and reach conclusions about them as a result. To be perfectly honest, I think it's fair to say that this basically nullifies your argument, because you're knowingly ignoring facts in favor of your own personal, subjective conclusions.

But you're no longer following your own logic here. Suddenly, you're relying on relatively reasonable consideration of facts rather than pre-conceived subjective conclusions about people.

And more importantly and relevant to the point, my second analogy that your logic would lead us to the conclusion that you must hate babies still stands completely firm.

Re: GWB hates women
 

how about "supple" instead of firm. or how about "indifference to fetuses is different from my attitiude towards babies, which is generally favorable yet the idea that they should come at the expense of someones well-being is exteremly questionable." how about "that's a dumb thing to say"

outside of all that, there's a flaw in your casual dismissal there, and it's this:

"pre-conceived"

it's an easy word to say (almost as much as "pretentious"), but it's wrong at this point. it's all conceived. there's nothing 'pre' about it. it's been done again and again and again that we can have a pretty good idea of what the bullshit is about at this point if we can stop dancing around it for two seconds.

"nullify"... :rolleyes:

Re: GWB hates women
 

So then you maintain that saying "theyre (pro-lifers) fucking retards holding back all things good and decent and should be the last people given clout or compromised with" is simply a factual statement?

And what exactly am I "dancing around"? I'm breaking down plain and simple points that directly speak to the issue. You still have yet to offer anything even remotely objective to support your conclusion that Bush and/or pro-lifers hate women.

Re: GWB hates women
 

1. my opinion is that it is factual. LOL.

2. they exist and seek control of. your plain and simple points are "dancing around" an issue that is neither plain or simple in its effects (though plain and simple in motivation). you're just engaging in more distraction like any other politics forum does.

Re: GWB hates women
 

How about "full sentences"? ;)

But more importantly, why do you feel that you deserve the consideration of a detailed, thoughtful statement like defining your position as: "indifference to fetuses is different from my attitiude towards babies, which is generally favorable yet the idea that they should come at the expense of someones well-being is exteremly questionable", yet someone with a differing viewpoint from you deserves nothing more than a thoughtless "they hate women"? What glaring hypocrisy! Why can't you see that it's equally fair for a pro-lifer to say: "indifference to women's abortion rights is different from my attitude towards women, which is generally favorable yet the idea that they should have these rights at the expense of an unborn baby's well-being is exteremly questionable"?

As for "that's a dumb thing to say" - I agree. And it's exactly comparable to what you're saying when you conclude that anti-abortion advocates inherently hate women.

Well one, we're not talking about every single aspect of the abortion issue here....we're only talking about the fundamentally flawed conclusion that opposition to abortion denotes hatred of women, which I've been directly addressing all along. So what exactly I'm "distracting" us from is a mystery to me. The accusation that legislation against birth control equals hatred of women is not a logical, objective progression of thoughts, and you've said nothing to prove otherwise.

If I oppose the idea of affirmative action, does that mean I hate minorities? If I support it, does that mean I hate whites? If I support a ban on guns, does that mean I hate hunters? If I support same-sex marriage, does that mean I hate the institution of marriage? If I oppose same-sex marriage, does that mean I hate gay people? If I don't like country-western music, does that mean I think Garth Brooks is a terrible person?

Re: GWB hates women
 

that's for 4th grade tests.

Re: GWB hates women
 

Holy crap....I just saw this. Is this a serious question? I know you're pregnant, but even that doesn't excuse the outlandishness of this analogy. I'm sorry, but beyond that, I can't muster the will to seriously reply to it. Wait....no, actually I will respond. If a man beats the shit out of his wife to stop her from killing their child, then no, I wouldn't label him as misogynistic. He didn't do it out of hatred of her for being a woman, he did it out of love for the defenseless child.

I'm not making excuses for it because I don't agree with it. All I'm doing is saying that it's counter-productive to assign hateful labels to people when they're not warranted.

Now to your point, there's legislation happening all the time that results in limitations of the choices of many different groups, but that does not inherently mean that groups on the receiving end of those limits are hated. As I said to dubman, it would be equally unfair to claim that because you support abortion rights, you must therefore hate babies and enjoy killing them. Because by your argument, you can never ever ever ever abstract the discussion to the point where you remove the element where unborn babies are terminated through abortion.

I recognize that you're not being dismissive of the seriousness of the issue of abortion, but you are being dismissive of the legitimate core beliefs that motivate people on the other side of the argument. Of course extreme limitation of or loss of abortion rights directly affects women in a negative way....not to mention the men involved who would suddenly be fathers as a result. I completely agree with that. But it does not logically follow that this result means, by direct extension, that pro-lifers hate women any more than your pro-choice stance translates into hatred of babies.

I take the charge of racism, misogyny, and other labels like them extremely seriously. They should never be applied loosely, or in a case where they aren't factually accurate, otherwise we diminish their seriousness. You can only cry wolf so many times before no one believes you any more...

The pro-life stance IS NOT ABOUT A WOMAN'S BODY!!! IT'S ABOUT THE UNBORN BABY'S BODY!!! Let me once again reword what you've said to make the point super-duper clear:

when you remove a baby's right to live and be born, you hold that baby hostage and deny it the basic right of "life" that every person on earth possesses without question. that is baby murder. that is hating babies. period.

That is also not what pro-choice people like you, Dubman and I believe. Nor do pro-lifers hate women.

Re: GWB hates women
 

hahahahaha

so technically if a guy knows that a woman is about to get an abortion, he could beat the shit out of a woman then. AHHH YOU'RE KILLING MY BABIES BASH BASH BASH

sorry, *now* im being facetious. i understand that you really want to make sure of a label before you apply it, so that the word stays potent, but to me it's pretty obvious that it applies and i've long gotten to my monthly (yearly) quota (like ya dooo) of internet discourse on it. thats why i avoid this place 9 times out of ten. most discussion sounds like endless rationalization to make it all seem tolerable and workable when i dont see anything but deeply embedded hostility towards everything thats not the ruling culture.

i also missed that cacophony post. good one.

Re: GWB hates women
 

Precisely. Be interested to see a response to this.

Because from where I'm sitting, it's not you who's playing fast and loose with logic here.

(And please folks, let's not even think of going down the "logic is cold, callous, unemotional, intellectual waffle, we're talking about real human beings here" line of defence. Logic is always relevant to argument, and "eliminating women's access to health care is the same thing as hating women" is an argument. Attempts to sideline and dismiss logic are usually tell tale signs of a lost argument.)

I swore I wouldn't come back in on this one.

Re: GWB hates women
 

No....I'm applying it to a born child...let's say like 2 years old...so that the point is crystal clear. That's why I used the word "child" instead of "fetus" or "baby". If Cacophony wants to give a wildly exaggerated analogy, I'll provide an equally wildly exaggerated response.

Hm....so constructive debate and respecting the views of people whose beliefs aren't perfectly in line with your own is nothing more than "endless rationalization to make it all seem tolerable and workable when you dont see anything but deeply embedded hostility towards everything thats not the ruling culture."

I don't give a rat's ass about the "ruling culture", but I do value honesty and decency. Brushing pro-lifers with a broad stroke as inherently misogynistic is neither honest or decent.

Re: GWB hates women
 

If I believed in god, I'd pray that you would stay actively involved. I feel like I'm alone in crazy town....;):D

mature edit by dubman in an effort to clearly display his awesome powers as a moderator :rolleyes: - YES I AM ALONE IN CRAZY TOWN

Re: GWB hates women
 

1. lol "constructive." eat it.

2. i think it's the truth, shed of most of the bullshit people excuse it with.

Re: GWB hates women
 

i hear these stories all the time. it actually is nice to hear because multiples are almost always born pre-term and i like to hear the success stories.

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frankly i'm baffled by your whole stance in this discussion. and by that i don't mean that i'm baffled that you don't agree. i'm baffled that your means of disagreeing is to assert that there should be a means of "proving" discrimination or effect on a group of society.

you're essentially doing a holocaust denier thing here. or the same thing people who defend slavery in america do when they try to prove that slaves actually lived well, so it wasn't such a bad institution after all.

no one can argue this with you. it's not a matter of "proof." it's a matter of a defined set of ethics. ethically you differ. fine. that's your right. but you can't "prove" ethics.


what exactly are the "facts" you expect to be presented? why don't you list a good collection of "facts" that would "prove" someone hated women?