queerbychoice | Unborn Victims of Violence

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Unborn Victims of Violence

~~Dear~~ U.S. Government,

I hear you're concerned about "Unborn Victims of Violence." Well, so am I! I'm concerned about how after all the currently gestating Unborn Clumps of Fetal Cells who have not yet developed even enough of a brain to compete with a goldfish actually get born and, a year or so later, actually start catching up with the intelligence levels of the cats and dogs whose deaths in animal shelters are certainly never prosecuted as "murders" and, another decade or so after that, reach puberty and get raped or just have sex while massively uneducated about birth control options, the law you passed today will do violence to them. Because the females among those by-then-long-since-born people who, by that point in their development, will have completely fully functional nervous systems to feel pain and brains to feel fear and horror and degradation, will be forcibly strapped onto operating tables and their bodies surgically cut open without their consent by the same prosecutors who are already charging Melissa Ann Rowland with "murder" simply for having dared to refuse doctors their supposed "right" to cut her open. And you designed this law you passed today specifically to help doctors forcibly cut open women like her without their consent, which means you designed this law specifically to do violence to the same future females who you then have the audacity to be claiming to "protect" from violence.

Furthermore, I would like to hear your answers to the questions

wiredferret insightfully asks:

If you are certain that life begins at fertilization, what do you have to tell me about my early-term miscarriages?
There is no comforting reflection about non-viability, then, is there?
Every child washed out of a womb before birth is a death, isn't it?
Does God really kill a third of us before we even open our eyes in the womb? Does that work for you?

There are disturbing implications, then.

Does my low progesterone level mean that I should stop trying to conceive, because God means my children to die?
Can I be prosecuted for inadvertently doing something harmful, before I even know I'm pregnant?
What about not seeking medical treatment to correct my miscarriage problems, is that manslaughter?
Are you going to go after polluters that increase the rate of spontaneous abortion with the same ferocity?
What if it turns out that a husband and wife will always produce flawed embryos, because of their genetics -- are they guilty of attempted murder every time they try to have sex?

I would especially like to know the answer to that question about polluters, because it might result in a large number of the mostly male people who pass laws like this being convicted of mass murder. Please reply ASAP, preferably from prison. Not that you shouldn't still go to prison anyway for injuring people's reproductive organs without their consent, but now your having increased the severity of your own crime from injury against the people you've rendered involuntarily sterile to committing actual murder against the entire maxmum number of babies those people were capable of producing should get you an even longer jail term.

Disgust,
Gayle

And while waiting for a reply to that (ha, right!), I'm going to suggest that more people, especially Americans, sign a bunch of petitions. It takes less time than voting, and probably has slightly more chance of having some effect than voting, plus it helps relieve some of the emotional frustration of being helpless. Which, judging by the journal entries I'm reading this evening, is something that quite a few of you could really use right now.

The Freedom of Choice Act Petition
Stop President Bush from Declaring Fetuses as People
Tell the Court: Late Term Abortion Ban is Unconstitutional
Against Abortion Parental Consent Laws and "Teen Endangerment Act"
It's the 30th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade - Will It Be the Last?
Tell Ashcroft to keep women's medical records private!
The Bush Administration Threatens Access to Emergency Contraception
Tell Congress: We Want Insurance Coverage for Birth Control
Protect Freedom of Choice
March for Women's Lives in 2004!

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

While I agree with much that you said, I have to respectfully ask that you take a step back and rethink exactly what this bill is suggesting. If a woman is pregnant, she has the potential to give birth to a child in nine or fewer months. A number of things could happen, both in and out of her control, that could end that process. However, if someone were to assault a pregnant woman and cause her to miscarry or not have her child, should that person not be held accountable for ridding the woman of her potential to give birth to a child in nine or fewer months?

There's very much that President Bush has done that I don't agree with. In my opinion, he crosses the lines of church and state far too frequently.

However, this individual bill ... I think you've taken your arguement to a level that simply doesn't make any sense.

do you happen to know if the Feinstein amendment passed with the SR1997? she attempted to declare that the unborn child, even with the bill passed, is not a distinct legal entity like a human being.

There was an alternative bill, sponsored by California Senator Dianne Feinstein, which would have provided the same extra punishment to criminals who cause women to miscarry or have stillbirths, but would simply have classified the reason for punishing them as injury to the woman, rather than as "murder." The reason that Congress chose to pass the version that called it murder was quite simply in order to undermine abortion laws.

Senator Feinstein's version did not pass.

Since I know so little about the alternative bill, I can't make a reply with any integrity ... so I'm going to bow out and look up further information about the bill.

I got into an argument with someone recently, and wrote this about the Melissa Ann Rowland case, edited slightly because I thought of more things to day:

There's a lot of hypocrisy in that case. If the mother was committing murder by refusing a Caesarian, then the doctors are accessories to that murder, since they knew exactly what was going on, and could easily have sedated the mother against her will and carried out the operation. The only reason they didn't is because medical ethics prevent doctors from performing operations, for any reason, if the patient is explicitly refusing that operation. There's no "except when delivering a baby" clause in those ethics. If refusing a C-section can constitute murder, then an ethical code that makes doctors stand by and just say "no, don't do that" as a murder is being committed is probably a bad ethical code.

However, nobody's complaining about the doctors for just standing there and saying "you know, you really should get that Caesarian" (though they certainly would have complained about someone who watched a murder and just said "hey, that's not a good idea" when they could have easily prevented the murder, without putting their own lives in danger, through a minimal application of force). Instead, people are blaming the woman for using her right to refuse an operation for any reason. But whether or not she should have used it in that case, it's clearly her right, or else it wouldn't have been respected and she would have gotten a Caesarian against her will.

Personally, I'm rather sure I would have just gotten the Caesarian, and if a child of mine had died at that point in its development, I'd certainly mourn it as a real death. I could even go so far as to say that that's what most people should do in that situation, and if I were a doctor I'd have strongly encouraged her to get that Caesarian. But the point for me is that I just don't think doctors have the right to go against a patient's will and cut her open without her consent, even if her own life is at stake. If Ms. Rowland had died in childbirth as a result of refusing a Caesarian (it's certainly conceivable that she could have), I certainly wouldn't label it as a suicide, although I obviously think that she's a human being who should be treated legally as such.

Also, I still don't get why most pro-lifers aren't focusing more on artificial womb technologies. I get the impression that a hell of a lot of women who either can't carry a fetus to term, or don't want to carry a fetus to term, would benefit from that- I'm sure removing a fetus live from the womb isn't much more complicated or invasive than your average abortion, and many women who make the decision to have an abortion, and stand by it, still regret having to end the development of something that could have turned into a child and gone to live with a family that wanted it. And of course if you think that fetuses are people, the technology could conceivably save a hell of a lot of lives.

Of course our birth rate would go up considerably, and it would be expensive, but surely pro-life groups wouldn't mind putting their (considerable amount of) money where their mouths are and help fund the thing, as well as adopt all those unwanted children (okay, I'm being a little sarcastic here, but really, if you're not willing to take some responsibility and help fix problems that your moral position creates, you can always just shut up).

"if a child of mine had died at that point in its development, I'd certainly mourn it as a real death."

I would mourn it, but not in the same way I'd mourn the death of a four-year-old who could actually, you know, think in complex sentences. I would mourn a stillbirth more like mourning the noncreation of a human instead of the death of one, or like the death of something else, a sort of pet animal who had the potential to turn into a human. It's a real death, sure, but not a real human in the usual sense of the word human as meaning "something more intelligent than dogs and cats and monkeys and dolphins and such." To mourn the death of a human involves grief for the kind of living thing whose thought processes or the general structure thereof you can make some reasonable guesses at and relate to pretty strongly, whereas to mourn the death of a less-intelligent-than-dogs-or-cats animal or a never-born baby is to mourn the death of a creature whose experience of death you can only guess at based mostly solely on the fact that it has a nervous system and therefore can be presumed to experience physical pain.

Gayle, you are my hero.

goddammit

Exactly.

If you are certain that life begins at fertilization, what do you have to tell me about my early-term miscarriages?

Yeah, really. I think the statistics, if you include fertilized eggs that don't implant (something like 50%, I think -- I don't feel like searching for where I wrote it down right now), are rather higher than 30% for fertilized (thus "alive") eggs that never make it to term.

Personally, I'm rather sure I would have just gotten the Caesarian

So would I, probably. And from some of the articles I read about the Rowland case, she had had Caesarians in the past and a history of mental illness. Her statement about being cut from breastbone to pubic bone doesn't even make sense, since Caesarians haven't been done that way for over 20 years, as far as I know (I was a C-section baby, to save my mom's life and my own). I find it extremely worrisome that no one seems to be taking the mental illness into account much.

The other thing that complicates matters is that I think I read that she used meth (or something similar) while pregnant, which is what that law was originally intended to address. I tend to support consequences for mothers who use drugs while pregnant, although I wouldn't call it murder. The whole case is just...incredibly messy, with a lot of conflicting issues coming together. But the thought of the law being able to mandate surgery terrifies me immensely.

(I could be confusing the drug use with another pregnancy-murder case, though.)

She did use drugs, but the drug she had in her system was cocaine, not meth, and she claimed that the only drug she had knowingly used was marijuana (which she said she'd smoked a week earlier) and that someone must have laced the marijuana with cocaine without her knowledge.

Yeah, I found it rather bizarre that she was afraid of the c-section. I'm a c-section baby too, and my mother does have a scar, but it's horizontal and beneath her belly button, I believe.

As for women who use drugs during pregnancy... it's complicated, because many women are addicted, and at the same time are discouraged from seeking abortions because "that's murder". I still haven't sorted out my feelings on that, since I still feel grossed out by the idea of the government telling me what to do with my body, pregnancy or not, but on the other hand, I have known kids who were really messed up because their mothers did meth while pregnant, and I do consider it a horrible thing to do to a developing child.

My younger brother is a C-section baby, and my mother has a vertical scar beneath her belly button - but she said that as recently as one year ago (which would be 22 years after she had the C-section), when she was climbing a steep embankment in her backyard, the scar split partway open and bled, and as a result of it being prone to such things, she's afraid to exert herself in physical activity much anymore for fear of splitting all the way open.

This makes me think that her scar healed more weakly than most probably do, but it does point out the fact that scar tissue in general is not just as good as never having been cut open in the first place - there can be a number of complications, from infections to scar splitting to out of control keloid growth to death from anaesthetic. Granted, most mothers who care about their babies' welfare and are rational enough to be able to comprehend the safety risk levels involved here would consider it a worthwhile small risk of complications for the sake of saving their babies, but still I wouldn't say it's "bizarre" to be afraid of C-sections.

It's not just a matter of the baby's well being- women who need a c-section often are risk other complications that might endanger their own lives, if they don't get the c-section. I'm pretty sure that for the most part, when doctors are saying that they're necessary, the c-sections are safer for the mothers than not having a c-section.

Though I'll admit I never imagined that c-section scars could split that easily so long after the operation. If it's true that this woman had had c-sections before, it's certainly possible that she experienced those kinds of complications and was scared of having another one for fear that the complications could get even worse.

Great letter!

I do think that the whole preserving the fertilized egg thing and life begins at conception theory is misogynistic crap. The eggs I flush down the toilet every time I menstruate are every bit as "potential lives" as a fertilized egg if you define it as such. So the importance people place in saving the fertilized egg and defining it as a life is the importance they put in the male's part in the woman's body. And hence that part becomes more important than the woman and can negate her right to refuse violence done to her body to save that oh so precious male-fertilized portion. If a woman were considered fully human then her right to not be cut open for any reason would not be questioned.

hey, just noticed that you had added me to your friends list.

anyway, yeah, i've always been of the opinion that the question of whether or not one's sexuality is chosen is pretty much a moot point.

Yes, I added you as a result of

v3g4n quoting you yesterday. It helped make up my mind about something I've been considering for a while - whether to change my voter registration to the Peace & Freedom Party.

Choice should be a moot point in terms of human rights, but it will always remain a highly relevant point in terms of making our personal experiences understood to friends and family, so I don't expect it will ever cease being much talked about. I just wish it would cease being talked about in the current manner in which the underlying assumption is that if anyone dares to assert control over their own sex life and choose different partners than their society ordered them to, their society has an automatic right to punish them for being so uppity.

Wait, but I have a question - are you bi or hetero?

straight, by irresistable, and sometimes lamentable compulsion, haha.

hey wow i didn't know the pfp even still existed!

anyway their platform sounds good, it's kind of transitional program-ish...i'd definitely say that's a lot better than voting for some god damned democrat haha.

In that case, I am removing you. In the future I should be more careful to read the top half of people's userinfo pages in addition to their interests list before adding them, because if I'd been paying more attention I could have figured it out.

Actually, the last sentence of the first paragraph in your March 24 2004 09h40 entry also contributed to the decision - I know you considered yourself to be joking, but the things people think are funny to say have an impact and are intended to have an impact.

"certainly not when they're fuckin BROADS [editorial note, i first spelled that "BRAODS", then went back and edited the entry]."

if this is what you're referring to, first of all, both of the people i'm referencing can read what i wrote. also, whether i call them "broads" or not, the fact still stands that, judged by conventional criteria for determining intelligence, they both far surpass me [they also surpass me in terms of life accomplishments and education, and it's not really a secret]. the second half of the sentence should also be enough to let anyone reading know that yes, it was definitely said in jest, and i am obviously making fun of myself, and making fun of that sort of sentiment [ie "yes i feel inferior to these people so i will assert my male privilege by dismissing them as simply "broads", but, oh wait, i can't even spell the fucking word"].

in any event, suit yourself.

what matters is if it was real in your mind.

i think some women, whether they want the baby or not, still view it as a real tangible baby. and it is a death. not just because it could possibly feel pain. maybe it's the potential to be a loving, living little thing that you have to care for 24 hours a day and feed and clothe.

i don't think i really thought about this before i had a child. and i don't know what i would do if i found out i was pregnant tomorrow. we cannot afford to have another child, but knowing what it has the potential to become ... it's hard to say.,

i don't think i am making any sense.

how can you possibly say that an infant in the womb at the end of a pregnacy is not a baby,,, where if it had been born at that point it would be. That doesn't make any sense. And, if you are going as far as to say that babies aren't real people, then where do you draw the line? With speech? With your comprehension of what they are thinking or feeling?

If you had ever cared for a newborn with a belly ache, you would know that they feel pain. there is no magic trigger at birth that turns those sensors on. that is just silly.

people take pregnancy too lightly, because they are selfish and disgusting.

Of course, we can't let the George Bush's of the world make decisions about life and death... But, don't give your fellow women so much credit. Just being a woman doesn't make someone good.

-angela episale

You don't appear to have read my comment very carefully at all, since not only did I not say that newborn/about-to-be-born babies do not feel pain, but I specifically stated that they do feel it. I also stated that they are alive and that I would mourn their deaths - but that they are not the same as adult humans, they are less intelligent than dogs or cats and as with the deaths of dogs or cats, our ability to guess at how they experience death is limited almost solely to our knowledge that they can experience physical pain. Well, physical pain can be relieved with medication, and I would be happy to support anaesthetizing fetuses before aborting them. That does not mean it's ideal to abort a nearly-full-term baby, but then it is not ideal to kill a dog or a cat either, and they can feel pain too, yet we do kill them in animal shelters when we can't find a home for them. And certainly if a dog or a cat was somehow embedded in a human's pelvis and dying there and the human refused to be cut open to allow the dog or cat to be extracted, I do not think most people would want the human to be forced to be cut open.

Perhaps you're just afraid that this argument tends to lead to implying it's okay to kill six-month-old babies too - but I don't believe it does. At most, it leads to accepting or partially accepting the practice of infanticide immediately after birth (did you know Canada already has laws that make infanticide immediately after birth a substantially more minor crime than murder of anyone else?), because there've been plenty of cultures that have accepted infanticide immediately after birth where abortion prior to birth was not available and finding an adoptive home was not feasible, and this has not led to also permitting infanticide after the baby is three months old. A line tends to get drawn usually within an hour or so of birth, because for people to actually get familiar with a baby and then harm it signifies that the act is motivated by dislike, and for people to go around feeling that harming people they dislike can ever be okay tends to be dangerous to society: babies certainly have to be treated well if they are going to grow up, because if they're abused then society will end up with a lot of physically brain-damaged/body-damaged or emotionally scarred people who society has to make special accommodations for.

I do not believe that infanticide immediately after birth needs to be legalized though, if the mother has access to abortion before birth instead - in that case, an even clearer and better ethical line can be drawn at the moment of birth. I also do not believe that many second- or third- trimester abortions would happen if women had better access to first-trimester ones. Unfortunately, people who object to them keep focusing on trying to make all abortions harder to obtain, which just tends to delay women's ability to get them sooner.

"Because the females among those by-then-long-since-born people who, by that point in their development, will have completely fully functional nervous systems to feel pain"

I read this as implying that the fetus didn't feel pain.

For the record, I think all of the dogs and cats being put to death in animal shelters does border on murder, and I am working to help bring an end to these unnecessary deaths in our local shelter.

I think that if abortions were limited to people with extenuating circumstances, I would feel much more comfortable with the whole thing. Unfortunately, Gayle, I personally know multiple people who were not careful enough to prevent pregnancy, and chose abortion over adaptations to their comfortable lifestyles. And, I also know plenty of parents who can't seem to figure out that they should put children first after they are born, much less before. I think way more people in our country are selfish than are victimized.

-angela

That line from my original post was referring to fetuses extremely early in development, who are included under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. A zygote, for example, does not feel pain. It does not possess any nerves with which to feel it.

"I think that if abortions were limited to people with extenuating circumstances, I would feel much more comfortable with the whole thing."

Attempting to place legal limits on abortions requiring extenuating circumstances results in people having to prove they have extenuating circumstances, which, considering that about .0000000001% of rapes ever get reported to police (and no wonder, considering how Kobe Bryant's accuser has had her picture on the cover of the National Enquirer, her name all over the internet, and her sexual and mental health history published absolutely everywhere, that rape victims would not want to report they were raped) and an even tiner percentage of those ever go to trial and an even tinier percentage of those result in conviction, essentially results in withholding abortion from the HUGE majority of such victims.

"Unfortunately, Gayle, I personally know multiple people who were not careful enough to prevent pregnancy, and chose abortion over adaptations to their comfortable lifestyles."

And you know what? The women who do such things have to experience abortion, which is quite decidedly more physically painful for them than using birth control would have been. They already get punished for their carelessness, with no legal intervention at all.

"And, I also know plenty of parents who can't seem to figure out that they should put children first after they are born, much less before."

And that's exactly why I very much prefer that selfish parents abort their children instead of raising them badly - because I would prefer not to share the planet with a bunch of people who were raised by such horrendously awful parents that they grew up to be murderers, rapists, and sociopaths.

"I think way more people in our country are selfish than are victimized."

That's possible, but considering that approximately one in every four females in the U.S. gets raped, that adds up to a hell of a lot of both.

I really don't think most abortions are from rape. But, I support those women, of course.

And, I am not for making abortion illegal, or even setting legal limits. I am just sick of how easily people make the abortion decision.

Also, I think that women often feel like they "should" get an abortion rather than bring a child into a situation they hadn't planned on. I know many women who still grieve (myself included) for a baby they aborted.. because the pressure was to abort rather than to "mess up their lives". Well, now that I have a child of my own, I'll tell you, I wish my life was "messed up" a long time ago.

oops, that was me again..

-angela

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Unborn Victims of Violence

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