Pro-Choice Group Takes Down Story Slut-Shaming Pro-Life Activist

RH Reality Check exposes sexual preferences of opponent because she is anti-Planned Parenthood.

RH Reality Check

Yesterday, the pro-choice group RH Reality Check posted a story about Holly Kaitlyn O'Donnell, who has emerged as one of "the face of the ongoing series of attack videos against Planned Parenthood and StemExpress, a private company that contracted with Planned Parenthood to facilitate donations of fetal tissue."

The story is amazing as a variety of slut-shaming, or using a woman's private sex life as a way to denigrate or undermine her credibility in public. That it comes from a supposedly feminist, sex-positive site is pretty stunning. So stunning, in fact, that RH Reality Check has pulled the story from its site and scrubbed tweets promoting it.

I'm in favor of legal abortion but find RH Reality Check's story truly disgusting. That the group has simply vanished the story only adds to the problem.

The controversial anti-abortion videos, which continue to be released by a group called The Center for Medical Progress, purport to show Planned Parenthood officials engaged in haggling over prices for fetal tissue and other practices; they also implicate a company called StemExpress, which transports and processes human body parts and tissue. According to FactCheck.org, the edited versions of the videos are misleading, especially in implying that Planned Parenthood is breaking laws about trafficking in human products for profit. "It remains legal to donate tissue from a legally aborted fetus, and for that tissue to be used for research purposes," notes FactCheck, and to recoup expenses associated with the maintenance and transportation of the material. "Few studies of costs associated with fetal tissue acquisition are available, existing evidence does suggest the prices named in the video are in line with general practices."

The most recent, released this week, has been widely posted around pro-life sites with headlines such as "7th Shocking Video Catches Planned Parenthood Harvesting Brain of Aborted Baby Who Was Still Alive." The videos have proven effective in generating not simply press about Planned Parenthood but legislative action, with at least 13 states moving to investigate and five states to defund Planned Parenthood, which receives tax dollars for providing certain medical services and contraception for women. Virtually all announced candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have also called for defunding or shutting down Planned Parenthood as a result of the videos as well.

Go here for Reason's coverage of the videos.

So what did RH Reality Check's story about Holly Kaitlyn O'Donnell expose? Among other things, that O'Donnell?

RH Reality Check identified O'Donnell's accounts on the dating site OkCupid, and using the same handle, her account on the photo-sharing site, Instagram. We also identified her account on FetLife.com (which appears to be short for "fetish life"), a site that provides the "easiest ways to find new kinky friends."…

O'Donnell is vocally in favor of same-sex rights and describes herself as "heteroflexible" and looking for a "Mistress."'…

Her accounts contain images of Hitler, include posts indicating eugenicist sympathies, references to abortion that are most accurately described as ambivalent, as well as considerable sexually explicit material….

one views O'Donnell's sexual preferences, when it comes to her Instagram account, certain posts are more difficult to defend.

In particular, O'Donnell displays a recurring interest in Hitler and Nazi-themed photographs.

One image shows the ripped abs of a male fashion model, nipples and navel visible above his jeans. However, the model's head has been photoshopped, and replaced with the recognizable face of Hitler. The caption reads, simply, "Adolf, 20."

Why is any of this relevant to the discusion of abortion, reproductive rights, or sexual freedom? The short answer is that it isn't, but it sure is salacious, isn't it?

Here's RH Reality Check's argument:

While there is nothing wrong or shameful about an adult's consensual sexual preferences or practices, the fact remains that O'Donnell is an unusual choice as the face of a campaign that has so far only otherwise been represented by the buttoned-up [activist David] Daleiden, who has carved a career as a conservative Catholic anti-choice activist, and whose allies oppose LGBT equality and speak in terms of moral absolutism when it comes to the sex lives of other consenting adults, especially women.

O'Donnell too has demonstrated a willingness to judge and condemn others, and to assume that she knows the motivations of Planned Parenthood providers with whom she worked and countless women who have had abortions, in some cases, donating the resultant tissue to medical research. Her sexual practices would not themselves be of note, but for her decision to step forward as a moral arbiter of the private decisions of others.

Beyond exposing O'Donnell's sexual proclivities, RH Reality Check dilates on her apparent heterodox views on abortion as well, the better to…er, what exactly is not clear:

"I don't believe in abortion," she said on the Splintered Caucus podcast, but added, "It's every woman's choice. That's your opinion. But mine, I'm pro-life…."I don't think I have any authority to outright say, 'Oh yeah, shut down Planned Parenthood,' because they do good for women," O'Donnell said. "At the same time, how many low-cost clinics in the USA do good for women, as well?"

Twitter

Read the full story in a cached version here.

Last night, the editor in chief of RH Reality Check , Jodi Jacobson, touted the disappeared story with this tweet:

Anti-choicers hate sex, except when its 4 them. Face of @PPact attack video seeks sexual freedom on OKCupid & FetLife http://t.co/xnOjAPGYZ9

— Jodi Jacobson (@jljacobson) August 20, 2015

In fact, based on the "facts" divulged from her social media and dating-site accounts, O'Donnell doesn't seem to have a problem with sexual freedom. Indeed, she seems to be an avid participant in it.

She is apparently against abortion—just like Margaret Sanger, who is often misrepresented as the "founder" of Planned Parenthood by anti-abortion activists (click on the link to hear Sanger biographer Peter Bagge further explain Sanger's views on race and eugenics, too, which are also often misrepresented). Sexual freedom and belief in abortion are two separate things.

As someone who is pro-choice, I find the willing conflation by Jacobson and crew truly toxic and shameful. As is the unwillingness to either stand by a despicable piece or to acknowledge ad explain why it was pulled.

Debates over sexual freedom, autonomy, and abortion are rarely burdened by nuance on either side. But RH Reality Check has done nobody any favors by engaging in slut-shaming that it would rightly condemn in any other circumstance. 

Comments

[John]

It is not even salacious. The woman is single. She is not running around on her husband or anything. I don't think anyone really cares about this.

[WoodchipperPatriarch]

The people who put politics into every aspect of life care very much.

[DoubleC]

Exactly right. If you're not okay cutting a fetuses face off to get their brain, you'd better keep your legs closed until your wedding night, ladies.

[Macy's Window]

+10

[SQRLSY One]

Lemme see, do I have it straight?
Anti-abortion forces use mendacious, deceptive practices of selectively editing video (which was taken under false pretenses), in order to imply that which is not true.
Pro-abortion-rights folks fight back by using different but also similarly questionable practices.
Do we not fight fire with fire, and violence with violence? Your taxpayer monies fund both, and no-one has yet invented optimal fire-fighting and peace-preserving methods that do not involve exactly these two things?
If you do NOT want public attention in favor of YOUR ways of doing things, and / or don't want unethical practices used against you, after you enter the public domain, then do NOT treat others differently than how you want to be treated!
So, no sympathy from me, for the "shamed slut".
Am I being unfair in any way, in looking at things, thusly?

[scooby509]

You're being deliberately obtuse to the point of being fucking stupid.

Anti-abortion forces are showing videos that highlight medical doctors (and their bosses) who do not behave according to the ethics of medical doctors. You can piss and moan that it's "under false pretenses", but it's obviously entirely relevant to the debate.

Pro-abort forces are claiming that if you want to disagree with them, you have to have taken a vow of chastity, which is complete bullshit.

[Suicidy]

You're being unfair and delusional/dishonest in every way.

[SQRLSY One]

I have a science-fiction hypothetical scenario (which is NOT totally, ridiculously absurd? Which is very plausible) to test the anti-abortion crowd:

Tomorrow, there is a non-fatal-to-the-human-race, but VERY bad, release of massive amounts of teratogenic radiation, via a "small" nuclear war, or VERY bad nuclear-power accident. Just suppose?

As a result, 90% of newborn human infants are born so defective, that they live VERY briefly, and/or, are grossly defective, to the point of, the human race is NOT going to survive, unless we (with the consent of mothers and fathers) abort those who are pre-tested to not be even vaguely, semi-optimally fit for perpetuating the human race. The human race (with its potential to be guardian of life for the entire planet, for fending off the next asteroid impact or the next volcanic mega-explosion at Yellowstone, for example) is at stake. Are we STILL going to say "every sperm is sacred"? Or, are we gonna say, "Humans, not God, fucked it up; Humans (not God) are responsible for fixing it? By hook or by crook, whatever works?"
If you have common sense in the sci-fi world, and make the obvious choice of compromise ("The perfect is the enemy of the good"); then why not for the mother of 5 under-fed kids, who is raped, and has the 6th in the works?

[Suicidy]

Ah, the 'Colonel Green argument'. Interesting. It is true we must protect the sanctity of out Precious Bodily Fluids at all costs.

[SQRLSY One]

No, we need not protect our sacred, precious bodily fluids. Every sperm is NOT sacred, is what I am saying.

What I AM saying is, our duties to be general "guardians of life on the planet" over-rides just about everything and anything (short of the preservation of the entire galaxy, or whatever other high-blown stuff we can come up with, which we can actually realistically comprehend and interpret and implement). And if a raped mother somewhere is totally over-loaded, and sees no other practical choice, SHE should be allowed to own HER body, and abort, if she wants to. Giant dick-heads who think they know better than everyone else, even if they are NOT involved in these kinds of intensely painful-at-times, personal, private decisions, should put their dicks back in their pants, and NOT decide for others, at the point of Government Almighty's guns. That's all that I am saying?

[Immolate]

I agree. Raped women should be allowed to abort their own body. Compassion suggests that we should try to talk her out of it, however, as she is probably not in her right mind and could use a little sympathetic perspective.

That aside, what does Catholic doctrine against birth control have to do with abortion? Last time I checked, nobody is compelled to be Catholic. All are free to ignore their musings or subscribe to them. Is your complaint that Catholics are forced to chose between their faith and contraception/abortion? If so, I think that's a feature of religion, not a bug.

[Paul Ogden]

Uh, the ENTIRE videos are available on YouTube. So much for your comment about "selectively editing video." Do you complain about the national and local news organizations which also do edited video.

[Johnathan Swift Jr.]

I am usually very pleasant when I post, but you, SQRLSY, who is being fundamentally dishonest here, which calls anything you say in question.

Every video that the Center for Medical Progress has been released in both edited versions and in their entirety at the same time, on the same day, in the same forum, for all to see. Any statement to the contrary makes you the liar and a bold faced liar at that.

The spin from PP and from its allies is what you are quoting here and that is what is "deceptive." When the NYT was caught using this spin, this mendacious lie, they were compelled to issue a correction, citing the fact that the videos have all, yes all, been released in their entirety at the same time as an edited version.

And of course for the truly mendacious ones, the use of "selectively edited" is also Orwellian. The edited videos never put words in someone's mouth, used one answer for another question, the type of thing that is implied, as you spin like a whirling dervish. Parts of these discussions were edited down, but even then, covered at some length, not chopped and channeled to make someone say something they didn't. The edited versions are simply shorter clips.

And as anyone with a few synapses to rub together knows, everything we watch on the television news from tape is "edited," so the charge of "deceptive editing" can be made about every single pre-recorded story we view. Every one is edited for time and content. So, this is spin.

[PapayaSF]

+1

[Rufus J. Firefly]

Jodi is cute. I bet I can get her to kink it up.

/creepy grin.

[Almanian - Trump's Woodchipper]

In particular, O'Donnell displays a recurring interest in Hitler and Nazi-themed photographs.

You know who else displayed a recurring interesting in Hitler and Nazi-themed items....

[Poppa Kilo]

Your mother? [obligatory entry]

[Pan Zagloba]

Soldiers of the Easy Company?

[Galactic Chipper Cdr Lytton]

Trying to Nazi-shame Sgt. Rock?

*makes a note*

[Pan Zagloba]

I meant more of the Band of Brothers guys and their eternal hunt for Nazi trophies.

[Danger Actual]

"Each and every man under my command owes me one hundred Nazi scalps. And I want my scalps." / Lt. Aldo Raine

[Jay Dubya]

i want my nazzy scallops

[Illocust]

Hitler?

[Poppa Kilo]

Comment flagged.

The first rule of Hitler meme is that we don't give the obvious answer to Hitler meme.

[Illocust]

Can I switch my answer to Churchill then?

[Poppa Kilo]

I'll allow it. Proceed.

[Free Society]

What about Willy Hitler?

[Loki]

Arnold Swhartzenegger?

I mangled his last name didn't I?

[SimonJester]

I see your Swhartzenegger is as big as mine...

[Loki]

FDR?

[TeamBarstool]

Marge Schott?

[Almanian - Trump's Woodchipper]

No one answered Max Mosley. I am disappoint.

[space junk]

Nazi Pelosi?

[Jimbo]

British royalty?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Steven Spielberg?

[Suicidy]

Mel Brooks?

[Austrian Anarchy]

He is a good answer for Inquisition quizzes too.

[Ivan Pike]

are to separate things.

Are not.

[Poppa Kilo]

Are so!

[Ivan Pike]

acknowledge ad explain

Ad another thing, is the following correct:

has done nobody any

because that doesn't look right.

[Poppa Kilo]

No one knows...

[Microaggressor]

Ain't nobody got time fo dat editing.

[LarryA]

As I was reading I marked those as symptoms of Nick Writing While Angry.

[grrizzly]

As someone who is pro-choice, I find the willing conflation by Jacobson and crew truly toxic and shameful. As is the unwillingness to either stand by a despicable piece or to acknowledge ad explain why it was pulled.

Sure, let's just re-post the choicest bits of slut-shaming on another website.

[Illocust]

Eh, considering the group on this site, it's not really shaming. None of us are going to judge her badly for wanting kinky sex.

[grrizzly]

I don't think that it's a good idea to republish the content of someone's private dating profiles, while condemning another website for doing it first.

[Illocust]

Depends what he's criticizing. If he's criticizing publishing things found on social media and dating profiles, then yes that's a bad idea.

If he's doing what I think he's doing though. He's criticizing inability to separate sexual preferences from support of abortion and the suggestion that their is something deviant and wrong with what she decides to do with other consenting adults sexually. Then there isn't really anything bad about satisfying his reader's curiosity.

[Paul Ogden]

Wow, trying to split hairs. #failingspectacularly

[DoubleC]

If you don't, then you're just going to be called a liar when the real article has been scrubbed from the internet. I'm sure O'Donnell approves since this is exposing her critics as hypocrites. If the org who is putting out the videos exposed one of the women being filmed as being a gang bang enthusiast according to their eHarmony profile, they'd do the same thing.

[Macy's Window]

I'm a little creeped out.

(Just kidding.)

[Suicidy]

Women need to want more kinky sex. From me.

[Suicidy]

But not fattys. Or uggos.

[Suicidy]

Or fatty uggos. That is all.

[Fist of Etiquette]

As is the unwillingness to either stand by a despicable piece or to acknowledge ad explain why it was pulled.

They're busy selling off parts of the dead story.

[Private Chipperbot]

/thread.

[Pan Zagloba]

Wait, is there some other story on PP?

[Loki]

I'm ashamed by how hard I just laughed at that.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Her accounts contain images of Hitler, include posts indicating eugenicist sympathies, references to abortion that are most accurately described as ambivalent, as well as considerable sexually explicit material....

Um, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the anti-abortion activist has posts claiming that the abortionists are like Hitler and eugenicists. One of the most common (and dumbest) arguments used by anti-abortion people is that because Sanger was a racist and because a high percentage of people getting abortions are black, Planned Parenthood is a eugenics organization. I therefore highly doubt that she was expressing sympathy for eugenics when anti-abortion activists would be much more likely to accuse opponents of eugenic sympathies than to have those sympathies themselves.

I also like the casual smear that it contains 'images of Hitler.' Cool - I'm guessing those images of Hitler are memes attacking abortionists, but by just saying she has 'images of Hitler' RH Reality Check gets to put the idea in peoples' heads that she's some kind of eugenicist Nazi.

[Irish ?s ESB]

Ah, should have read farther:

In particular, O'Donnell displays a recurring interest in Hitler and Nazi-themed photographs.

One image shows the ripped abs of a male fashion model, nipples and navel visible above his jeans. However, the model's head has been photoshopped, and replaced with the recognizable face of Hitler. The caption reads, simply, "Adolf, 20."

Which expresses Nazi sympathies...how? It's weird, but I'm guessing it's some kind of inside joke.

The heteroflexible, sometimes lesbian who supports gay marriage and says Planned Parenthood does 'some good for women' is unlikely to actually be a Nazi supporter and this is hardly a smoking gun.

Also, what the shit:

The plot of Flowers for Algernon bears some strange parallels to O'Donnell's recent experiences. The book focuses on Charlie Gordon, a man stuck in a menial job. Using the same technique they applied to increase the intelligence of a mouse?named Algernon?a group of scientists transform Gordon into a genius, but only fleetingly; therein lies the tragedy.

?????

[Illocust]

Nazis had some really spiffy outfits. Especially spiffy if you want to modify them slightly for adult fun time. It's really not that weird of a sexual roleplay.

[Jed Templin]

+ 1 The Night Porter

[Irish ?s ESB]

She also posted this, which RH Reality CHeck appears to believe might be a serious pro-Hitler comic rather than a joke.

The nature of Instagram makes it difficult to determine O'Donnell's intentions in posting these images?or others, that criticize Black protesters at Ferguson, Missouri, rallies or the multiple pictures that feature guns. Some posts could be interpreted as racist, mocking names most frequently associated with Black culture. Her account is also interspersed with more quotidian fare, like pictures of cats and of hash browns.

Like her OkCupid profile, O'Donnell's Instagram stream indicates that she is in favor of same-sex marriage. But it also indicates that she is a critic of President Obama and Democratic presidential candidate, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Public records reviewed by RH Reality Check did not disclose whether O'Donnell has an official party affiliation.

Criticizing Democrats and pictures of guns? History's greatest monster.

[lafe.long]

"like pictures of cats and hash browns"

I lol'd

[commodious spittoon]

Quotidian is an ironic word. Sadly, irony is a quotidian word.

[Ayn Random Variation]

"Also, what the shit:

The plot of Flowers for Algernon bears some strange parallels to O'Donnell's recent experiences. The book focuses on Charlie Gordon, a man stuck in a menial job. Using the same technique they applied to increase the intelligence of a mouse?named Algernon?a group of scientists transform Gordon into a genius, but only fleetingly; therein lies the tragedy.
?????"

That's some Grade A mask slippage. Agree with us, and you're a brilliant humanitarian light bringer. Go off the reservation, and you're a dumb nazi whore. Progs are such evil people.

By the way, that was the most depressing fictional book I've ever read.

[commodious spittoon]

You know who else has a repository of millions of images of Hitler?

[tarran]

Skeptical Science?

[commodious spittoon]

Hilarious.

[The Shrubber's Woodchipper]

Alton More

[Austrian Anarchy]

Again, Steven Spielberg. He displays them all over the world on occasion.

[Poppa Kilo]

I know we did it up thread, but -

You know who else had 'images of Hitler'?

[Illocust]

National Archives.

[lap83]

The History Channel?

[Almanian - Trump's Woodchipper]

Hitler's mom?

[Jimbo]

"He was such a nice boy!" - Hitler's Mom

[soflarider]

Actually that quote was from young Hitler's neighbors.

[Jimbo]

Everyone's a critic!

[Fist of Etiquette]

You know who else sort of had pictures of Hitler?

[UnCivilServant]

The people who made Hogan's Heroes?

[UnCivilServant]

That was actually meant for the subthread a notch above, but when you think about it, given Craine's proclivities, you still have promiscuity and nazi imagery associated with the same person.

[Jimbo]

You have way too much fucking time on your hands.

[Suicidy]

I could go for some extra fucking time.........

[CampingInYourPark]

Why is the pro-abortion crowd so joined at the hip with Planned Parenthood?

[Drake]

Because Planned Parenthood is the embodiment of a "pro-abortion" philosophy.

Most Americans are willing to tolerate the practice of abortion for the first trimester, after which they find it too close to infanticide and want it prohibited except for legitimate medical reasons.

Pro-abortion types have no problem with what is essentially infanticide.

[John]

That sounds extreme but I don't see any other explanation. If the pro abortion crowd were in any way reasonable and actually meant everything they said about being pro choice and about wanting abortions to be "safe legal and rare", they would be horrified by this. Instead, they are willing to do anything to defend planned parenthood. I can see no other explanation for that than them being as you describe them.

[Drake]

I didn't think it until I learned what partial-birth abortion meant and how often they are willing to perform this form of execution to terminate an inconvenient pregnancy.

[John]

They lie so much. It is like the whole "health of the mother" dodge. They always claim that they want an exception in any ban for "the health of the mother" knowing full well that any such exception will swallow the rule since every abortionist will say the abortion is for the health of the mother no matter what the facts.

[Loki]

They always claim that they want an exception in any ban for "the health of the mother" knowing full well that any such exception will swallow the rule

Same thing with the rape/ incest exception. I guarantee that if abortion was banned except in cases of "rape, incest, or the life of the mother," you'd suddenly see a sharp increase in the number of reported rapes, incest, and pregnancy complications that threaten the mother's life.

OTOH, a total ban in all cases would be unenforceable, unless you're going to investigate every miscarriage as a possible illegal abortion. It's a complicated issue with no easy answers, which is why I'd prefer it left to each state as opposes to a top down federal solution.

[John]

I am all for a "rape" exception, provided that the woman is required to file a police report and under oath say who raped her and how it happened. Somehow, I don't think they would like that.

[tarran]

You should talk to a lawyer... he or she would tell you that people lie under oath all the time.

/Stares bitterly at latest statement from his divorce lawyer.

[tarran]

God! I suck at commenting today! I deleted my ;)!

[Suicidy]

I wouldn't be surprised to find out in the future that Planned Parenthood was giving some kind of financial incentive to women to delay their abortions until they could get monetizable aged fetuses out of them.

[Paul Ogden]

Bingo! only 10% of abortions are second trimester. But with PP 25% of them are second trimester. That's a huge discrepancy? The only explanation is $$$$$.

[Rasilio]

Oh please no one lies more than anti abortion nuts, we'll start with this one...

"They always claim that they want an exception in any ban for "the health of the mother" knowing full well that any such exception will swallow the rule since every abortionist will say the abortion is for the health of the mother no matter what the facts."

Bullshit, It would be trivially easy to require that when a doctor performs a late term abortion as a matter of medical necessity in order to save the mother that his actions automatically be reviewed by an medical review board to determine whether his actions were indeed necessary and if they are not he loses his license to practice medicine for 1 year on a first offense, 5 years on a second, and for life on a 3rd.

Just how many doctors are going to be willing to risk that just to help some woman get rid of an unwanted pregnancy?

[John]

Sure it would be easy. But it isn't the pro life people who object to such provisions. It is the pro choice people.

[Rasilio]

lol yeah right.

See it is really the extremists on BOTH sides who argue that those compromises can't exist because I have heard a great many pro lifers argue just that there should be no exceptions whatsoever not even life of the mother to an abortion ban.

The reality of abortion is you could probably get around 60% of the country to agree to a law that made abortion illegal past 30 weeks, banned for all reasons except medical necessity past 20 weeks, and legal before that but the ideologues on both sides would never allow that to happen because it would remove their power

[Loki]

Surely you're not suggesting that there's some middle ground between the screaming activists on both sides? That's just crazy talk./sarc

[Lord at War]

Rasilio-

The reality of abortion is you could probably get around 60% of the country to agree to a law that made abortion illegal past 30 weeks

That's the thing, though. I was a 30 week baby... born in a fucking hillbilly hospital (Altoona PA) in fucking 1964. Born blue (both lungs collapsed). The doctors said I'd be "retarded". I joined Mensa at age 10 (quit at 11-- lol).

You are saying that 40% of Americans today would kill someone like me, today, despite 50 yrs of new medical technology...

[Loki]

if they are not he loses his license to practice medicine for 1 year on a first offense, 5 years on a second, and for life on a 3rd gets charged with murder.

FTFY. Afterall, if abortion was illegal except in cases of medical necessity, and a doctor was found to have deliberately (key word) performed an unecessary abortion, that's what it would be, right?

[Rasilio]

Only if you assumed that the Fetus had human rights at that point.

[Loki]

I was assuming that in a parallel universe where abortion was banned except for medical necessity that would be the rationale for the ban. Otherwise, why ban it?

[Suicidy]

The further they can push out individual rights, the happier the progs will be. According to Ezekiel Emmanuel' plan, maximum utility to the state isn't achieved til around sixteen.

[NYLawyer]

You misunderstand this point. The "health of the mother" includes a broad range of considerations, including economic, that is in no way reviewable by any board. It's from a Supreme Court case shortly after Roe v Wade. A "medical necessity" exception would be stricken down by the Supreme Court as too narrow. So the objection is not bullshit but is in fact correct.

[Masturbatin' Pete]

And who's going to sit on the Board of Abortion Approval?
How many pro-lifers do you expect to sign up for that job?

[Suicidy]

Plenty, if they think they have political cover from progressives. Like they do now for all kinds of things.

[Suicidy]

Like how well all that oversight from multiple regulatory worked with Kermit Gosnell?

[mamasan]

Bullshit. If the health of the mother is in question, she goes to a real doctor AND also has a doctor for the baby and early delivery is the course followed. An abortion is not really any different than early delivery other than killing a baby first. But the "health of the mother" continues to hang out there as if abortion is the answer when the health of the mother is the issue. Did no one think this through?

[mswen]

This is complete bullshit. If a woman is going to get an abortion, she will typically get one as soon as possible. 65% of abortions in the US happen in the first 8 weeks. 91.5% happen in the first trimester. The number one reason women wait until weeks 13-20 to get abortions? Because they either live too far away, or can't afford, to get it done sooner. So cutting funding and closing clinics will actually lead to more abortions that are performed in the second trimester.

After 20 weeks, abortions may only be performed if the health of the woman is at stake (about 1.5%). Whether an abortion is necessary for health reasons is easy to confirm with a second (or third opinion), and the patient's medical records. It's funny how the pro-life crowd never mentions this in between their drawings of fully formed infants having their brains sucked out. It's like they want you to think potential mothers will just change their mind and have a partial-birth abortion a week before the due-date. Or, better yet, they'll just procrastinate, and subject themselves to the hormones, weight gain, sore breasts, flatulence, and other fun symptoms of pregnancy, rather than having the fetus removed when it's the size of a grape (8 wk), or a Cheeto (12 wk). Is it worth it, just to have that "glow" and maybe go up a cup size? Well, we all know "abortionists" would happily kill fetuses for sport, if they could.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Well, no.

The pro-Abortion people don't believe that a fetus is human, therefore they don't see selling the tissues as repellant. They see it as making valuable material available for research.

I know that the Pro-Life side doesn't think this way, nor do I think they should. But assuming that the Pro-choice side believes that abortion is murder leads to attributing to them patterns of thought that are bizarre and conspiratorial. It doesn't forward the debate any.

It also closely parallels the way the Pro-Choice side ignores the possibility that they opponents believe a fetus is human, and thereby come to bizarre conclusions about motive involving Patriarchy and enslavement of women.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

Cntd.
Never attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity. The Pro-Choice side is defending Planned Parenthood because it has simply never occurred to them that if they want to keep their 'Abortion Rights', they need to get along with the neighbors. They blew a lot of moral high ground about "protecting poor women" when they didn't catch Kermit Gossnell a lot earlier. They've expended even more fighting the clinic regulation legislation that some states have passed in the post Gossnell climate; if there was already enough regulation, why did that ghoul get away with so much for so long? What Planned Parenthood has dome may well be legal. It looks very bad, though, and that isn't all the work of the Pro-Life bunch that did the filming.

They don't know how to fight a retreat without making things worse.

[Suicidy]

"The pro-Abortion people don't believe that a fetus is human"

Nor do they care.

[C. S. P. Schofield]

No. You're making the same mistake THEY make when they assume that Pro-Life oeople "know" a fetus ISN'T a person, and then go looking for exotic reasons why they would be against abortion in that case.

They believe that a fetus has not developed enough to be a person. They believe that killing it is not murder.

Where they screw up is believing that being "right" about that is all that matters. So they behave in a way that will, I seriously believe, end up scuttling their "abortion rights". Because you cannot roll over public opinion in a representative government, unless you want it to eventually roll over YOU, the way Patton rolled over Southern France.

I, too, believe that a fetus is not a person. But society can function fine on the assumption that it is, so I'm minimally bothered by the prospect of Planned Parenthood getting their arrogance stuffed up their backsides.

[Hank Phillips]

Is the death sentence for homicide essentially homicide?

[Illocust]

Under fire mentality. PP has managed to convince folks that if they go down no one will be able to get abortions. Anyone that tries to horn in on any of their funding gets ruthlessly shut down, so they in some ways have established themselves as such.

Really, the pro-abortion guys would be better off making an ethical alternative to PP. Instead of PP's secrecy route, go the so far above board their beyond reproach route.

[mad.casual]

Really, the pro-abortion guys would be better off making an ethical alternative to PP. Instead of PP's secrecy route, go the so far above board their beyond reproach route.

They can't. In an age where you can't murder a fully grown pig and eat it or a lion half a globe away without a local rage mob shutting down your business, you couldn't possibly abort babies and sell parts/dispose of waste without *everyone* knowing.

The only reason it took this long to get video of PP is, just like slaughterhouses, they've gotten used to people being increasingly leery about what they do.

Really, they'd be better off making PP popularly ethical (I haven't heard of any pharmacies being blown up for distributing RU-486) and/or getting out of bed with the gov't.

[Loki]

getting out of bed with the gov't.

^THIS^

If they were 100% privately funded, and were operating within the bounds of current law, then a lot of this shit goes away. Then if people don't like them selling fetal tissue, they could agitate to get that law changed (at the state level, in Loki's Libertopia Fantasy Land the federal government would stay out of abortion).

[Suicidy]

PP has no interest in doing either of those things. And neither do the democrats.

[mamasan]

+10

[Rasilio]

"PP has managed to convince folks that if they go down no one will be able to get abortions."

Um, in large parts of the country this absolutely would be true.

Sure in New York or LA you'd be able to find someone to perform the procedure but in some podunk town in southern Texas? Yeah it might be a 500 mile drive to find a legal abortion in the states or you could take your chances south of the border

[mad.casual]

Sure in New York or LA you'd be able to find someone to perform the procedure but in some podunk town in southern Texas? Yeah it might be a 500 mile drive to find a legal abortion in the states or you could take your chances south of the border

And? Last I checked every employer in TX was subsidizing a woman's right not to get pregnant in the first place.

How fucking accommodating should *we all be* so that indecisive, underage, unwed teen in Podunk, TX can get a late(r) term abortion (without any stigma/guilt)?

[kbolino]

The existence of PP in a remote location likely displaces the potential alternatives. Furthermore, there isn't much demand for abortion in podunk towns, if for no other reason than there aren't that many people. We aren't declaring it a national crisis that there isn't a shock trauma center within 20 miles of everybody; the same is true of PP in South Texas or wherever. As to the distance to the next PP, that is part of the reality of living in the sticks. Low population density can't justify the same level of service.

[kbolino]

Second to last sentence should read: "As to the distance to the next abortion clinic, ...".

[Illocust]

Along with pure displacement from supplying the market. PP also tends to lead campaigns against groups that try to switch their funding to other organization. Just look at the breast cancer group (I can't remember their name, but it was a woman's name and it was a big freaking deal until they caved to the pressure of PP supporters) that tried to move their donations to other women's health organizations.

[mad.casual]

Low population density can't justify the same level of service.

It seems like you could privately/discreetly get enough abortifacient shipped overnight to just about anywhere in TX for a relatively paltry amount of money (via USPS if you really feel the need to stick it to the US taxpayer even).

IMO, this is and has been a problem with much of the anti-abortion rights movement that they've hidden behind other issues since the beginning. *Some* of them *are* nutjobs that rather literally want to make sure that every woman has the right to murder on every streetcorner on a whim.

[Masturbatin' Pete]

What PP has done effectively is hold hostage - and get "pro-choice moderates" to join them in holding hostage - the good stuff that they do to abortion.

I'll stipulate arguendo that PP provides some important non-abortion medical care. They also provide abortions, which they say is a small part of their business, and which they claim is not government-funded.

Okay then, if your non-abortion services are so important and abortion doesn'tt require government funding... spin abortion off. Open "Planned Parenthood Health Clinics," which would continue to get government funding, and down the block, open "Planned Parenthood Abortuaries," which would get funded some other way.

Instead, PP and its allies say "we have bundled abortion and basic health together. Give us money and let us do abortions OR THE POOR WOMEN GET IT." That's reprehensible. You guys are the ones who coupled basic medical care with abortion, not me. Not pro-lifers. You. And you can end the controversies about funding the stuff you claim is so important TODAY by spinning abortion off.

[Migrant Log Chipper]

Good point...

[Suicidy]

Well Hell! Let's just increase PP funding so they can afford to send their abortion mill doctors right to the girl's homes to murder those babies.

[Suicidy]

It's not like PP provides anywhere near all abortions anyway. I'm sure there are plenty of other abortion mills ready to pick up the slack.

[mad.casual]

Why is the pro-abortion crowd so joined at the hip with Planned Parenthood?

This isn't obvious? If you aren't endorsing all of women's reproductive actions and the government involvement/subsidization thereof, then you're just about murdering babies. And I haven't seen the polling numbers on the 'murdering babies' platform, but I think it's pretty close to the Bush Administrations' numbers.

[Galactic Chipper Cdr Lytton]

Also, fried children.

[Poppa Kilo]

Low carb, if you don't bread them.

[mad.casual]

*DEEP* fried or GTFO!

[Almanian - Trump's Woodchipper]

You know who else burned children to death....

[DenverJ]

Too soon?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Bill Clinton and Janet Reno?

[Hank Phillips]

Dick Nixon? Lieutenant Calley? "Our" B-52s? Lyndon Johnson? Christian National Socialist elected Fuehrer Adolf?

[UnCivilServant]

purport to show Planned Parenthood officials engaged in haggling over prices for fetal tissue and other practices; they also implicate a company called StemExpress, which transports and processes human body parts and tissue. According to FactCheck.org, the edited versions of the videos are misleading, especially in implying that Planned Parenthood is breaking laws about trafficking in human products for profit.

They also released the uncut footage for each undercover video. It shows that the only stuff that got cut was the irrelevent chit-chat and these people actually were haggling over the prices and worried about profit-maximizing of human body parts. I take it you didn't watch either set then if you're going with 'fact check' for your statement about the authenticity.

[Illocust]

Why does this not get mentioned more often? They released the unedited video. Every time someone says the videos were edited to be misleading a link to the unedited should be shoved in their face.

[Austrian Anarchy]

It does get mentioned daily, just not in places like Reason and The Nation.

[Suicidy]

It doesn't matter. The left always screams that any undercover videos that hurt them are 'edited'. Perception is reality for them.

[Florida Man]

It's like all the cop videos of shooting people in the back.

"Well that video is edited!"
/police union lawyer

[John]

And amazingly enough, reason rightly never buys that kind of shit when it comes from cop unions. Why does Planned Parenthood get a pass?

[Florida Man]

*sips fresh cosmo*

No idea.

[Almanian - Trump's Woodchipper]

*toasts Florida Man with fruity drink garnished with an umbrella while riding the Orange Line headed toward a KKKochtail PARTEEZzz! in the DC area*

[Florida Man]

My BIL always ends up with a fruity girl drink when we go out. It never fails. I give him a hard time, but honestly if you like it, drink it is my philosophy.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

STOP PICKING ON REASON.

[Florida Man]

"Leave Brittany reason alone!"

/seriously though I love the reason team

[Harvard]

Because Nick's pro-abortion?

[Suicidy]

Is Nick secretly in cahoots with PP? To get live black market babies to throw into wood chippers? Feet first?

[John]

It is paragraphs like that that give the "cosmotarian" charge legs. Reason is supposed to be non partisan and Libertarian. They ought to call it as it is no matter whose ox is getting gored. And they seem willing to do that when it is the Republicans' getting stomped. But here they just repeat planned parenthood talking points. That is just infuriating. Tell the truth and screw who it offends. You can always respect the facts even if you don't like them. But I don't see how you can respect things like this.

[Cecil de Lionchipper]

You just now figuring this out?

[CatoTheChipper]

I don't respect it. "Purport to show" is just a reiteration of Reason's admitted pro-choice bias.

The video definitively shows haggling over the value of reclaimed body parts depending upon condition. To say it purports to show such is just weaselly.

[DesigNate]

To be fair, he may not have watched the videos and is just going off of what he's read/heard.

[Austrian Anarchy]

just going off of what he's read/heard.

Or he just settled for the confirmation bias method of verification. A time honored journalistic technique that pre-dates The Great Duranty.

[Immolate]

You get the problem with that, right?

[Immolate]

"Pro Choice" is in itself Orwellian. The contention between the sides isn't between those who want women to have a choice and those who do not. It is between those who want legalized abortion and those who consider abortion to be murder. Pro life people are pro choice. Keep the baby, give the baby up, don't get pregnant--and there are plenty of sub-choices there as well. Choice is good, killing babies is bad. Therefore, "Pro Choice" is an abortionist marketing term that is no honest person should employ. The correct terms are "pro abortion" and "anti abortion".

[Austrian Anarchy]

Psst, John, I got a secret for ya. Reason has what ya call agendas and Big Nick is like da agenda Czar.

[Migrant Log Chipper]

Agreed and it looks really bad for PP. I do believe that PP does provide valuable services for women and am ok with choice to a point. At some point the kid is viable and they should have rights.

PP does not agree and as the public learns more it won't end well for this bunch. I know it was a gotcha by pro life activists but the PP big wigs looked bad, really bad, fucking crass and inhuman. I think there moral authority dropped by 50% in a couple weeks. Hubris ends badly often, eh?

[Suicidy]

This is just like Acorn, another progressive darling. In the end they will disband at least part of their organization and re-constitute it's evil under a new name.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Glad someone got to this already.

purport to show Planned Parenthood officials... Purport? What did Nick and his assistants find when they looked at the unedited version? If they did not bother looking at the whole thing, then they should not have bothered writing a story about it either.

Also, that bit about studies unavailable on shipping costs? Can't an intern call around and do some Googling to find this out?

[DEBBAK]

One, perhaps even more, of the videos shows the negotiating regarding shipping, couriers, and other expense items. The procurement company often supplies couriers, someone to consent a patient, even a tech to help with the actual harvesting of specimens. In those cases there would be no cost to PP. Here's another issue. If PP has a fetus from which three specimens are retrieved and have negotiated a "reimbursement" of say $60 per specimen, but little extra time was required to actually harvest the additional two (presuming a base unit of one specimen per case), then what justifies the additional expense. It can't be doctor time because he is bound by federal law from extending or altering a procedure. It really can't be lab time because they use that lab time already to ensure all the parts are accounted for. Storage? Well, if it's "fresh" and sent out within the business day, the specimens (tiny enough for all three to fit in a ring box) would take up about 2 cubic inches in a fridge...so what storage? Just exactly what direct expense is the abortion clinic incurring? The choicest comment was the 'Lamborghini' lady who extolled the virtue of procurement companies who provided the courier, consent agent, retrieval tech, because then the clinic didn't really have to do anything. Notice that this fact didn't inspire her to offer, under those circumstances, to GIVE the procurement company the tissue for free.

[DEBBAK]

One, perhaps even more, of the videos shows the negotiating regarding shipping, couriers, and other expense items. The procurement company often supplies couriers, someone to consent a patient, even a tech to help with the actual harvesting of specimens. In those cases there would be no cost to PP. Here's another issue. If PP has a fetus from which three specimens are retrieved and have negotiated a "reimbursement" of say $60 per specimen, but little extra time was required to actually harvest the additional two (presuming a base unit of one specimen per case), then what justifies the additional expense. It can't be doctor time because he is bound by federal law from extending or altering a procedure. It really can't be lab time because they use that lab time already to ensure all the parts are accounted for. Storage? Well, if it's "fresh" and sent out within the business day, the specimens (tiny enough for all three to fit in a ring box) would take up about 2 cubic inches in a fridge...so what storage? Just exactly what direct expense is the abortion clinic incurring? The choicest comment was the 'Lamborghini' lady who extolled the virtue of procurement companies who provided the courier, consent agent, retrieval tech, because then the clinic didn't really have to do anything. Notice that this fact didn't inspire her to offer, under those circumstances, to GIVE the procurement company the tissue for free.

[DEBBAK]

Of course this may be smart business because the procurement company isn't a volunteer agency; the biotech firm or research facility is paying them for their work, so I am sure the PP affiliates involved in the fetal tissue trade expect some kind of cut in.

[Loki]

That it comes from a supposedly feminist, sex-positive site is pretty stunning.

It's OK when they do it because they're "goodthinkers" and the person they're slut shaming committed thoughtcrime. /progtard

[TheZeitgeist]

Ever since these videos came out and I learned of this outfit "The Center for Medical Progress," I have always wondered about that name.

The "Center for Medical Progress" sounds kinda lefty (maybe its the 'Progressivism' part) to me; I would not be surprised if a group with such a name were advocating single-payer for instance.

But in retrospect with the IRS mess and Lois Lerner et al, I wonder if that name was cooked up for because it sounds lefty - so it would slip through the IRS filter easily and quietly when the group was being stood up as a legal entity.

Maybe I'm being a little xenophobic there, but if I were to start a libertarian advocacy outfit, I would name it 'Liberals for Progress' or some-such.

[commodious spittoon]

Liberals for Economic Equality.

[commodious spittoon]

Wait, shit. Liberals for Income Equality. LIE.

[commodious spittoon]

"Similar pay for similar work" would be our tagline.

[NotAnotherSkippy]

I prefer "Getting you all the Pay you deserve."

[Paulpemb]

'Progressive Progressives for Progress'

But yeah, I kind of assumed the name was chosen because lefties would look at the name and assume the Center for Medical Progress were fellow travelers.

[Paul.]

Is this whole thing like a Jr. High tweet brawl?

[Crusty Juggler]

Your face is like a junior high tweet brawl!

Paul, it gives the kids a chance to talk about abortion, which is all that matters.

[Crusty Juggler]

I may be going out on a limb here, but these pro-choice folk often act like a bunch of jerks.

[commodious spittoon]

I'm not going to sugarcoat it: we appear to be out of frosting.

[devan]

Speaking of slut shaming, has Sandra Fluke spoken out about this yet? Not holding breath.....

[John]

I think her 15 minutes are up. I am surprised she hasn't simply because she needs the attention.

[Suicidy]

What has Sandra Fluke got to do with females? Isn't Fluke some kind of golem/homunculi hybrid?

[Loki]

Sexual freedom and abortion are to separate things.

As someone who is pro-choice, I find the willing conflation by Jacobson and crew truly toxic and shameful.

Jacobson and crew are not just pro-choice, but pro-abortion. There is a difference.

Pro-choicers, generally speaking, still have a line somewhere. A lot of pro-choicers are not OK with third trimester or partial birth abortions, and are generally of the attitude that abortion should be legal, but rare.

Pro-abortioners, OTOH, are of the opinion that all forms of abortion, all the way up to partial birth should be legal, and that abortion is even a valid form of birth control (e.g. fuck like rabbits and if you get knocked up, who cares just go down to the clinic, get the unwanted "mass of cells" vacuumed out and go back to fucking your brains out).

Given that, it's not that surprising that Jacobson would conflate sexual freedom with being pro-abortion, and view someone who's pro-life and kinky as some kind of hypocrit.

[John]

AT some point it becomes a death cult. It is one thing to view abortion as a really difficult issue and not be willing to judge others or think that the harms of making it entirely illegal as worse than the harms of making it legal. It is quite another to see abortion as a good thing and want more of them. It is pretty clear Sanger was in the latter category and so are these people. They really do seem to be more about infanticide and getting rid of the "unwanted" as they call them than they are pro choice or pro liberty.

[Notorious UGCC]

I wish to be fair to Frau Sanger - she professed opposition to abortion - whether sincerely or not I don't know. She said that free circulation of birth control would reduce abortions, which clearly hasn't happened. ("but, but, it would have been worse without birth control!" - yeah, but she promised it would *reduce* abortion, you nimrod)

Now, before we get all warm and fuzzy about Frau Sanger, take a look on pp. 107-108 of her *Birth Control Review* from 1932

http://www.toomanyaborted.com/1932-04 April-PLAN FOR PEACE.pdf

Her "peace plan" includes "apply[ing] a stern and rigid policy of sterlllzatlon and segregation to that grade of populatlon whose progeny is already tainted, or whose inheritance
is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring."

Oh, and " giv[ing] certain dysgenlc groups in our population the choice of segregation or sterllizatlon" - because it's all about choice.

[Notorious UGCC]

Try this link to the pdf:

http://ow.ly/RcBZb

[Austrian Anarchy]

The Reason style guide requires you to begin that with "Purportedly her peace plan includes" "Allegedly" can be used in its place.

[Tonio]

The terms pro-life and pro-choice are both intellectually dishonest. One can be pro-abortion and still wish there were fewer of them and done as early as possible.

[Ivan Pike]

The terms pro-life and pro-choice are both intellectually dishonest.

What should the terms be?

[Cecil de Lionchipper]

"can be pro-abortion and still wish there were fewer of them and done as early as possible."

Reasonable.

"I can yank this piece 'o' flesh out of me whenever I want! Because, convenience!"

Scumbag.

How's that?

[Paulpemb]

Pro-abortion and anti-abortion seem to be pretty concise. Of course, that would make it harder for the pro-abortion side to sanitize which 'choices' they are actually in favor of.

[Suicidy]

I wish to increase the abortion rate to 100%.........retroactively...........for progressives. They should support my choice in this matter.

[Lord Humungus]

My wife is pretty damn kinky too - but I don't hold it against her. Instead I tie her up.

[Florida Man]

I never got slut shaming.

Some woman: "That Karen is so slutty."
Me: "That's HAWT!"

[Irish ?s ESB]

That's because huge percentages of 'slut shaming' comes from women who are trying to insult and demean other women by calling them trashy.

[commodious spittoon]

calling them trashy.

HAWT!

[Florida Man]

Right?!?

[Tonio]

Irish Johnson is right!

[John]

The funny thing about this is that I would bet most of the people on fetlife are married and in very stable and otherwise conservative relationships.

[Rasilio]

I don't know about most of the people on Fet, as with all such sites it has a fairly large number of people who created a profile out of curiosity and fairly quickly abandoned it.

What I can tell you from hanging out with the Fet crowd is that married couples in stable relationships tend to be fairly rare among those who are active on the site, especially among those who go to Munches and other get togethers accounting for maybe 15% of the community. However long term and reasonably stable relationships of other sorts (not married couples, triads and other groups) are pretty common

[Pulseguy]

I know very kinky couples who had a desire for it, but never really acted it out while single and in the early stages of family etc. But, have since getting a bit older, kids gone, etc.

It makes sense it is older, more stable couples, in a way.

[Pulseguy]

"That Karen is so slutty"

Immediately followed by "Seriously? Do you have her phone number?"

[Suicidy]

My response would be "Where is Karen right now?"

[Slammer]

Instagram's way out of the Nazis' jurisdiction anyway.

[DFG]

It would be a real shame if someone were to dox Jodi Jacobson in return.

[Seamus]

Yeah, I would totally deplore such a turn of events.

[Notorious UGCC]

So, let's see...first, all opponents of abortion don't like sex and certainly don't want women to enjoy sex.

Then when there's an example of an activist for a prolife group who is into kinky sex - and apparently has a sense of humor too, not that these feminists could understand the concept of "humor" - then instead of admitting that their narrative has been challenged, the choicers turn on a dime and say, "how dare this woman challenge our stereotypes!"

And it seems that the woman they're attacking may be one of those elusive abortion "moderates" - not ruling it out altogether, but bothered that people are selling dead-baby parts.

And as to the argument that their selling dead-baby parts isn't a scandal because it's legal, this proves too much - after all, abortion is (according to the courts) legal, yet somehow it remains a scandal.

The fact that certain stuff is legal often *is* the scandal.

[Cecil de Lionchipper]

Thanks! Your comment summed this article up nicely. The writing was a little tough to follow. Ima derp.

[Immolate]

I like your handle. As I see it, the problem isn't making a machine that will chip a lion. The problem is getting the lion into the chipper.

[Austrian Anarchy]

You mean the same way Communism was going to electrify Russia, then when they could not even manage that it became electricity bad?

[Cecil de Lionchipper]

Is it just me or is the wording of this article somewhat difficult to follow? I know. Its me.

[drevildoer]

As the great PJ O'Rourke says:

"I have often been called a Nazi, and, although it is unfair, I don't let it bother me. I don't let it bother me for one simple reason. No one has ever had a fantasy about being tied to a bed and sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal."

[Notorious UGCC]

I love that quote.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Yes, the Fascists were the most fashionable of the Socialists, he makes a good point. Communists could not even steal a good look. Jane Fonda looked so much hotter when dressed by a Hollywood Liberal crew than she ever did sitting at an anti-aircraft gun.

[Cecil de Lionchipper]

"Virtually all announced candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have also called for defunding or shutting down Planned Parenthood as a result of the videos as well."

To be fair, many of them do not feel taxpayers should be paying for abortion, just because. And it has been shown that abortions are by far the most common "service" provided by PP.

We are being fair, right?

[Rasilio]

Err, I don't know that you could really say that about "many of them" more like 2 or 3 of them

[Hank Phillips]

Hey, fascists getting their feelings hurt is the important thing. To hell with individuals having rights. I'd rather die in an ebola epidemic than have my money fund the CDC in Atlanta.

[Scottzilla]

Reason is the only publication where I read things like this, "I'm in favor of legal abortion but find RH Reality Check's story truly disgusting. That the group has simply vanished the story only adds to the problem."

Don't shut up and continue to take my money.

[ant1sthenes]

You know who else constantly made veiled references to...

oh, shit.

[MSimon]

Clean up in aisle 13. Bring the deodorizer.

[Wrecks]

Libertarians should all be pro life. If you claim to believe in individual rights, you should be consistent. The right to life is the most basic right we have. You can't have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness without life.

[Rasilio]

OK, so you are investing full human rights under the NAP at the moment of conception.

So, now please explain how antibiotics are not a violation of the NAP against the bacteria they kill. Then work your way up through the food chain to Elephants and Dolphins who clearly have demonstrated a level of intellect and abstract reasoning ability that overlaps with humans and demonstrate why none of those species deserves the same rights.

If you want to argue that it is somehow human genetics demonstrate how your theories of rights will not come crashing down the instant someone makes a partially self aware computer or we encounter a self aware alien race.

Your argument is flawed in that just because someone agrees with you on general human rights that they similarly agree with you on the origins and nature of those rights

[ace_m82]

Fair enough argument, but:

You will never make a "self-aware" computer.
There are no aliens.

You are right in saying that we don't agree on who NAP applies to. Heck, the Supreme Court once decided NAP doesn't apply to people of African descent!

That all being said, the only time "pro-choice" people think it's OK to kill a live human being is when it's brand-new.

[ThomasD]

There is nothing fair about that argument.

He first posits that possibly bacterial infections are somehow deserving of the same rights we accord humans, and goes on to imply a spectrum of status based upon "a level of intellect and abstract reasoning ability that overlaps with humans." A spectrum that - presumably- he wishes to imply that a fetus falls somewhere within.

Horseshit sophistry, and nothing more than a variation on the "fetus as a parasite" meme..

Nor do we apply the NAP based upon where someone measures on "level of intellect and abstract reasoning ability." We apply the NAP because someone is human regardless of their level of intellect and abstract reasoning ability.

I'd just add that he is rather fortunate we also do not limit the NAP based upon one's level of mendacity or spoken misanthropy.

[Masturbatin' Pete]

Boom.

[ace_m82]

Actually, it was fair. He made it clear (through being ridiculous) that not everyone thinks NAP should apply to all things or all humans.

And yes, you and I think NAP applies to all live humans, but he does not... Just like the Supreme Court keeps ruling...

[Austrian Anarchy]

Shouldn't bacteria have the same human rights as dogs and cats?

[Masturbatin' Pete]

As long as we're talking about the Long March of Progress and all the wonderful machines ahead in our future, can I ask a question about history?

Of all the people who have sought to make distinctions between homo sapiens on the basis of some trait, such that those lacking such a trait can be killed at will by those who possess it, how many have been judged kindly by history for making that distinction?

I'll take one - just one at all - if you can name him.

[Hank Phillips]

Most US governors since 1776 have stood proudly by while real murderers were hanged on the basis of one trait: a murder conviction. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that state governors had actually assented to the execution of mystical fanatics convicted of shooting physicians. Yet I see very few of them arraigned next to the Christian Father of National Socialism and maker of swastika-crucifixes as decorations of German motherhood in any rogues' galleries.

[Hank Phillips]

A woman is an individual, even when pregnant. Superstition says otherwise. Superstition also says it's OK to bomb babies and women provided they're Mohammedan, or Vietnamese, or President Bush sez they're "terrists". Never forget that the National Socialist Program advocated "positive Christianity" and that the man who wrote it got 90% of the vote in election after German election.

[Hank Phillips]

You can't have life without freedom and individual rights. Sending men with guns to force women to reproduce against their will is coercion, not freedom, and tramples individual rights. For a pregnant woman is an individual, like it or not. Go check whether the 14th amendment starts with All persons born... or All sperm injected...

[Berserkerscientist]

The mother has a right to refuse donation of her blood to the fetus. Anything else makes a slave of the mother. It is really quite simple.

[AD-RtR/OS!]

Anyone organizing a demonstration in front of Jodi's residence?
No? Too Bad!

[Pulseguy]

Why? It isn't as if she killed a lion. All she really did was try to destroy a young woman who doesn't think correctly.

[Suicidy]

Or worse.......said she would not cater a hypothetical gay wedding with pizza. No greate sin than that.

[buckw]

It seems pretty clear from her picture that "Jodi" is a guy. You don't even have to look closely.

[Harvard]

Yes, but can she toss the javelin?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Those AMC cars were a bit hefty to toss, and too small on the inside to have a toss in the back.

[XM]

Conservative leaning pro-lifers may disapprove of "sexual freedom" that involves fetish, but they're not going to pass the mother's lifestyle or sins to the fetus in order to justify an abortion.

If you're pro life and like to sleep around, you're basically being responsible for your own actions. You know a promiscuous lifestyle might lead to unexpected pregnancies (protections sometimes fail) but you're willing to go through with that outcome. You might even believe that companies shouldn't be forced to offer you maternity leave or pay for your contraception, since your lifestyle was YOUR decision.

GASP!

[MSimon]

My hormones made me do it.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Keep with the times and blame it on the patriarchy.

[Masturbatin' Pete]

It's a pretty steep slippery slope, folks.

You start out doing something that seems harmless, like advocating for the right to kill homo sapiens that you find inconvenient and have deemed to be subhuman, and before you know it you're doing something really bad, like fail to explain why you took a hit piece down from Twitter.

[venerabilis]

Ok so more than half of the text of this article is an appeal to authority using fact check of all sources as some sort of defence of ones position and of planned parenthood.

Actually having the due diligence to watch the videos and more specifically the one containing the subject of this article would have been a better angle than falling back to planned parenthood talking points. Perhaps haggling over profit from the scavenging of corpses is not running afoul of the law (I am not sure in which universe this is true, but it seems possible) but dissecting a living, outside the womb infant certainly is a violation of the law no matter what Sangeresque universe you happen to hail from.

As for Margarett Sanger and her viewpoints are concerned I will just go with her own words recorded for posterity.

http://youtu.be/HsrOPDdbTzM

Nothing like a nut job that pretends to know exactly which people should be prevented from having children. If ever there was a person who stands in direct opposition to individual liberty it was this bucket of crazy.

[exsanguine]

I concur on the rhetological fallacy of the article.

I will also add, and most will not agree, another clarity to this entire kerfuffle:

If you have to twist your fucking logic into a pretzel just to justify the killing of a human.
You have already lost the debate.

[MSimon]

According to Jewish Law it isn't a human until 1/2 the head or 1/2 the body (breech birth) exits the birth canal.

[Masturbatin' Pete]

It's funny... science has a simple answer: it's a human from conception. A human child, infant, fetus, and embryo are all members of Homo sapiens.

It's the pro-choice side - the folks who tell us that we have to get religion out of politics, that we have to keep our rosaries off their ovaries - who stroke their chins like medieval theologians pondering when ensoulment occurs. They say things like "okay, it's a human, but is it a person? When does personhood occur?"

Meanwhile, pro-lifers say "if it's human, there's a high bar to killing it." It's pro-choicers who are giving us mystical nonsense and pondering how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

[Austrian Anarchy]

Don't confuse the pro-murder folks with facts. Good thing you didn't toss in the unique DNA argument there or they would be calling you a flat-earther.

[Suicidy]

But what of Bird Law?

[Immolate]

Odd choice for an appeal to authority. Where is Jewish law codified? Are we talking modern or ancient Jewish law? Moses, the lawgiver, most certainly wrote no such thing. Separating "Jewish Law" from "God's Law" makes Jewish law no more interesting than Zimbabwean law, as it has no basis in divine instruction. Keep in mind that the Jews were constantly provoking God's wrath by worshiping Baalim or "passing their (live) children through fire" to appease Molech. They were quite capable of error.

[Hank Phillips]

Is this a question about murdering clinic doctors?

[Austrian Anarchy]

Actually having the due diligence to watch the videos and more specifically the one containing the subject of this article would have been a better angle than falling back to planned parenthood talking points.

But the planned parenthood talking points are what keep the writer and his (if he self-identifies as he at the moment) bosses invited to the right cocktail and costume parties.

[BrookeLoomeslfu]

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[MSimon]

Wacked Lives Matter.

[John Galt]

Correct, slut-shaming Holly is just plain wrong. Do you have her phone number?

[MSimon]

Because we need vagina police.

I would gladly volunteer.

[Suicidy]

#OccupyVagina?

[Hank Phillips]

So the anti-choice movement doesn't like exposure as National Socialist pervs? But they do want men with guns to kick in doors and force women to squeeze out future criminals to justify a police state. Which initiates physical force to impose beliefs on others?
Since Christian SS spokesmen are all hurt by mud slung from defenders of a population biology outfit--a public service like the Center for Disease control--let's examine some compromise solutions.
Suppose the IRS were to tax the churches that brainwash these superstitious wretches and fund their anti-choice lobbies? After all, special tax exemptions are, in looter doublethink, actual subsidies, right? And the IRS is good--both parties agree on that. So it would simply amount to "defunding" organized mysticism and raising some revenue from predatory televangelist kingpins to help reduce the deficit their chosen politicians created.

[Masturbatin' Pete]

Yes, that's what we want.

[Suicidy]

I'm pro-choice. I want to choose who lives, and who dies.

[Immolate]

The woman in question is not a poster child for anti-abortion ideology. All law is the threat of force by the state to compel obedience, including speeding tickets. No idea what you mean about the CDC. This Christian conservative is okay with it fulfilling its function, within the bounds of good sense. Government doesn't tax churches to prevent government from interfering with religious expression and freedom. Few conservatives have any love lost for the IRS. It is an agency loyal to the left that is corrupt and happy to punish political enemies.

Defending innocent life is not a religious prerogative. Any decent and fair human being should object to the killing of an unborn child, regardless of their spiritual beliefs.

[venerabilis]

I would like to disagree, I think this woman is the perfect poster child for the anti abortion ideology, we certainly can not attribute her stance to a religion or other sprititual path. She is your average left leaning even solidly left wing person who reached a point where she had to willingly suspend logic and reason or finally take a stand against her own prior ideology. This is called maturing, it demonstrates she has the capacity to rise from the Pavlovian adherence to social expectaions of her peer group. It certainly is a more powerful message that one from a person who has the religious/social background that has always supported the ideology

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[Hank Phillips]

Something similar just happened in Brazil. The reelected President, Dilma, an intellectual of the looter persuasion, dared to criticize the NSA surveillance espionage and phone taps of her administration. Immediately the US moved its hit-woman to the ambassador's post here (after she was expelled from Bolivia then mentored the overthrow of the Paraguayan government) and a steady cacophany of CIA shills stage fake demonstrations, etc, ensued. A prohibitionist puppet magazine, ?poca, ran a sexual-innuendo-charged article attacking her from that angle, and the thing backfired. They had to take it down. Search "?poca da Dilma"
All 32 political parties here are communist, fascist and prohibitionist. Libertarians aren't allowed.

[buybuydandavis]

"That it comes from a supposedly feminist, sex-positive site is pretty stunning."

Stunning? I'd say predictable.

Anyone remember the charming things all those "feminist, sex positive" Progressives had to say about Palin?

You have to remember that Progressives are all about power. They complain about slut shaming when it serves their power, and use it when it serves their power.

[Paul Ogden]

"I'm in favor of legal abortion"

Isn't the whole point of the abortion debate what should be legal and illegal? Thus, the prefatory comment makes no sense.

[recucodo]

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[Walter Peck]

That it comes from a supposedly feminist, sex-positive site is pretty stunning.

What's stunning about that? It's downright predictable at this point.

[MarioLanza]

Vanished the story? Apparently, vanish can be used as a transitive verb. Is this evolution of language or devolution? Methinks the latter.

[Immolate]

The US government has been disappearing stuff since the 50's. Such a versatile language.

[sidneygunn]

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[yodoyuzor]

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[Jack Strawb]

"The story is amazing as a variety of slut-shaming, or using a woman's private sex life as a way to denigrate or undermine her credibility in public. That it comes from a supposedly feminist, sex-positive site is pretty stunning."

That you think feminists assaulting or doxxing their opponents is "pretty stunning" suggests an unpardonable ignorance about how feminists are willing to conduct themselves in 2015. The mild, moderate Christina Hoff Sommers is "pro-rape" and a "rape apologist," for example, according to campus feminists at some of the most elite schools in the country. Get with it, Nick.