[Sean]

Originally Posted by cacophony

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?

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.

Originally Posted by cacophony

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'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.

Originally Posted by cacophony

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.

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...

Originally Posted by cacophony

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.

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.