I liked this. I also really despair of some men, sometimes. I'm not going to go into it too much, as the article smacks down the pillocks quite thoroughly, and I have other things on my wandering mind.
I read all the comments on that piece, which I tend not to do on blogs (I don't enjoy trollfights, as a rule), and I continue to be fascinated by some of the arguments that anti-abortionists come out with, as well as those put forward by "centrists" or "moderates". I mean, this one-per-customer idea - what good is that going to do anyone? Once is alright, but twice is murder? Obviously I know why they suggest it, because they tell me. It's about responsibility. We must be responsible for our own decisions. Translation: I feel that I have the right to control your body if I don't like what you're doing with it. It astonishes me that anyone feels they have the right to tell women when and how often to have sex, and then when and how often they can have a medical procedure. The arrogance of it is astonishing. They think they get to decide who is allowed medical treatment. I mean, I don't like smoking - I think it's stupid, a filthy habit, and can only do you damage, but I cannot imagine saying to a smoker, "Lung cancer? That's your own fault. Fuck off and die in the street."
I also find it difficult to take seriously the position of those who believe abortion should be illegal except in case of rape or incest, et cetera. Why? If you believe it's child murder, then why is the "child" who is the product of rape any less of a child and more worthy of murdering? If we take the favourite crappy trope of the forced-birth crowd: Well, You Wouldn't Murder A Three-Year-Old, would it be more acceptable to murder a three-year-old child who was the product of rape? Obviously not. I firmly believe that the majority of anti-abortionists don't give a shit about children. They make the rape/incest exception because those women can still be redeemed; they can still be Good. Those who had sex on purpose are Bad and must be Punished. It's about control of our sexual habits. It's about transporting us back to this idyllic 1950s state that nobody I know remembers actually existing. Since I first became aware of abortion, I've heard people say: well, it shouldn't be used as a form of birth control. And yeah, that would be a bit dumb. We have much better forms of birth control readily available to us (I know this is less true for Americans, who have to pay for the Pill, but we Englishwomen get ours for free). And if "not as a form of birth control" was meant to mean "don't be bloody stupid about it and learn about contraception", fine. But it doesn't, does it? At its most harmless, it means "I judge sluts." At the other end of the scale, it means "I hate sluts and think I should get to deny them medical treatment." We know it's not about abortion being murder, because otherwise they'd object to all abortion, substitute birth control or not.
You don't often come across people (from a British perspective) who will happily announce that all abortion is murder and nobody should ever be allowed to have one. We mostly get "Well, I could never have one" (which is fine), that strange breed of wishy-washy sort-of-Conservative who firmly believes that we will one day be able to pinpoint exactly the moment during gestation when a foetus becomes a child, or those who sort of vaguely think it's a bit icky but don't support either side of the debate. Of course, we do have an occasional whackjob. No, I promise I won't link to Nadine Dorries again, but she is getting her own tag.
So our abortion debates, such as they are, are often led by the second group. Where and when does life begin? We must find it. David Cameron apparently thinks life begins at twenty weeks in the womb. Why? We don't know. He pulled the figure out of his ass. Should we ask him - which I promise you I will, given the slightest opportunity - he would probably make some noises about scientific advances (one of the arguments I hate most because it implies that one day we will have the technology to outlaw abortion), but I bet you his true feelings lie with the third group: he vaguely thinks it's a bit icky. I use David Cameron as an example partly because I still can't stand him and haven't had a go at him for a while, and partly because he's such a good symbol of England in regard to the abortion debate. We think a fertilised egg is clearly not alive and a thirty-nine-week-old foetus is clearly a baby, so somewhere in between is the point where a magical transformation occurs and what is clearly a ball of cells turns into what is clearly a human being. We don't think of it in those terms, of course, because it just sounds daft. We like to make noises about "viability", but what does that even mean? Foetuses can be "viable" at twenty-four weeks because we have some impressive technology these days. And as I said, at some point, we may well have the technology to make all foetuses "viable". Does this mean abortion should be outlawed when we have made such advances? We would still say no, I think. I think we might also say that removing a six-week-old foetus and incubating it for eight months is a little creepy.
Abortion is a hugely contested subject, but most of us have no idea what we think about it. We might know that we're pro-choice or pro-life (hate, hate, hate that term), but for almost all of us there are questions that would make us go "...huh. I don't really know." I don't know what the time limit should ideally be. I know I don't think it should be any lower, but why couldn't it be higher? I don't know. I just sort of defer to the consensus of the medical profession and gloss over it. If I were in America, I wouldn't do that. I don't believe there should be a limit on how many abortions a woman can get, but if I were to hear that a woman had had twelve abortions, I would want to know why. How stupid is that? Why, even in my own head, am I asking this hypothetical woman to justify herself to me? What if she'd had all twelve because she was careless and didn't use contraception? Well, what if? Why on earth should that make any difference to me whatsoever? Why should she have to set out her precise reasons for me so that I may judge her a slut or an idiot? (I hate the whole concept of "slut" so I'd never do that, but I absolutely see myself judging her as an idiot. And maybe she is an idiot, but what has that got to do with me?)
It shocked me a little when I started thinking about this - I throw huge stroppy fits about anti-abortionists judging women for their choices, so why is it alright when I do it? I don't believe that every choice a woman makes is necessarily feminist, or that it must be the right choice because a woman made it, but I clearly think abortion is alright. If one abortion is a personal, private medical decision to be kept between a woman and her doctor (plus partner and/or family if she so chooses), why aren't twelve abortions just twelve personal, private medical decisions to be kept between a woman and her doctor? Why, instead, do twelve abortions carry some heavy statement about the woman's life? The reason she had one abortion wouldn't matter to me, so why would I demand her reasons for having twelve? Is it because most of us pick up a little of this vague "abortions are icky" from society and have to consciously fight against it? Or maybe because we all feel that we have the right, to some greater or lesser extent, to judge a woman for her sexual behaviour? It's probably both. Unless we work to get over it, we look at the gestation of a pregnancy and pick a point between "clearly just cells" and "clearly a baby" as the point where life begins, just we look a woman's sexuality and pick a point between "clearly a prude" and "clearly a slut" as the point where we as a gender should ideally sit. The whole thing is subjective and ultimately pointless, but most of us have 'em, and they slide up and down as we change, as we think we've learned more and therefore it's alright for us to judge these women now because I've learned.
Have you?
Showing posts with label Abortion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Abortion. Show all posts
Tuesday, 30 December 2008
Wednesday, 20 August 2008
We Must Be Warned
So, new research tells us that abortion is not as traumatic as the anti-choicers like to claim. And, of course, some people are not pleased about this. The Times presents us with this charming piece by Melanie McDonagh which protests: "But risks! There must be risks! Because it's an abortion! You're killing a baby!"
It's been a while since I've done a smackdown, so let's go through this, shall we?
She starts off by going on about how there's no such thing as "value-free abortion research" or, indeed, "value-free interpreters of the research". What this translates to is: Bias! Bias! This and all previous and subsequent information about abortion is biased! You can't trust any of it! She goes on to reveal which side of this particular argument she's on by referring to the APA report as "meat and drink to the pro-choice lobby". Hey, we're a lobby! You know, she's probably right; I welcome anything that might lessen the potential for guilt-tripping and scaremongering. Odd, that. I bet she'd think I was value-free.
The APA has concluded that abortions do not really impact one's mental health. McDonagh has to throw in a quick scaremonger about multiple abortions. She then complains that this research will be used when the UK Parliament votes on a possible amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (how poncy are we?), which would require compulsory counselling for every woman wanting an abortion. She's not happy about this report being used, because the evidence is biased. Come on! We need something to counter the truly excellent research of Nadine Dorries! She then refers to journalists writing about their own experiences with abortion (as Caitlin Moran, among others, did) as "snuff journalism". Yeah, snuff journalism. Look at all these nasty murdering women, "bragging" about their abortions. Yes, Melanie, they're bragging. It's not as though they're doing it to break the taboo or reduce the censure that women get if they consider having an abortion. It's not as if they're writing because they aren't ashamed of their abortions and don't believe that any woman should be. Way to demonise women, though. Why aren't they ashamed of it? Shut up, bitches!
Ah, now we get to it: "My chief objection to abortion isn't the damage that it might cause the woman concerned; I mind that it kills the foetus." In case you missed that, she doesn't really care if abortion does cause huge amounts of mental distress - she just wants to exploit that line of reasoning to protect her own world view, and while we're at it, the imaginary babies. But if we are going to take the silly mental distress thing seriously, we must acknowledge some spurious studies that she's thrown in in order to make herself look academic. Apparently, there are a lot of variables. Who knew? Women are people! Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor. It really irritates me that she then spends the rest of the article pretending to care about our mental health and how important it is to warn us of the risks, when she's already admitted she doesn't really care.
I have to admit to being highly confused by her next bit. She says that a study which concluded that there was increased risk of "depression, suicide and substance abuse" was criticised for not including information about the backgrounds of the women who had these abortions. She then informs us that some other researcher said: "there is consensus among most social and medical science scholars that a minimum of 10 to 30 per cent of women who abort suffer from serious negative psychological consequences". Oh, consensus, is there? That's what Nadine said. Surely if there was consensus, the APA wouldn't have just told us the opposite? What I really don't get about this is that she's just provided us with a handy rebuttal to that quote - what about the women involved? What are their backgrounds? Do they have a history of depression? She does say something about the APA study being criticised by pro-life groups for this and that, but I have yet to come across a pro-life group that doesn't rely on emotional blackmail and slut-shaming to get their points across.
Bizarrely, McDonagh then complains that MPs are susceptible to research from well-respected sources (well, she says "authoritative-sounding" because she is right and everyone else is wrong). And, y'know, I hate to bring up Nadine and her "reasons" again, but your side really doesn't have a leg to stand on at the moment, Mel. This stuff is coming from a highly-placed academic organisation, and countering that with the Daily Mail just isn't going to cut it. Sorry. She then says this:
"Before the recent Commons vote on whether to restrict the time limit on abortion, research was published that suggested the life chances of premature babies had not increased beyond 24 weeks, despite medical advances. This was extensively quoted in favour of keeping the limit at 24 weeks, even though babies born prematurely self-evidently have problems, or their mothers do. The study had no bearing on ordinary, healthy foetuses, yet was used to see off the attempt to change the time limit on abortion."
This really pisses me off. As I've said before, you cannot painlessly remove a foetus from a woman at 24 or 20 or 16 weeks and place it in an incubator for a few months until it's fully developed and is ready to be sent to an adoption agency. The woman has to carry that unwanted foetus inside her. She's stuck with it. She has to give birth to it, even though she doesn't want to. That's what this all boils down to - McDonagh and her ilk want to force women to give birth. Who cares, really? She's pregnant, not a person. You can opt out of any medical procedure. If you don't want it, you don't have to have it. Even if it would save another person's life, like a kidney transplant, you don't have to do it. We do not have to give birth. Leave us alone. It freaks me out that these forced-birth people think the limit should get lower and lower along with medical and scientific advances. I once had a very early miscarriage. Should the day come when I have to bring it into the hospital to see if they can "save" it?
McDonagh then protests that there must at least be a risk of depression following an abortion, mustn't there? All that other stuff is biased anyway. There must be a risk, and "isn't there a case for warning women of this?" ARGH. Jesus, Melanie, we're grown women. We know what abortion is, we know how we feel about it, and we can make our own damn decisions. Just because a woman has gained an unwanted foetus does not mean that she has lost her mind. We who support choice know what abortions involve, we know that we may or may not feel upset over having one. We do not need to be talked down to by some sanctimonious counsellor who wants to make sure that we really understand sadness. She also advocates a cooling-off period, because we all know that pregnant women are irrational, and also five years old. We shall place her on the naughty step until she sees the error of her ways. Then she chucks in a little more scaremongering, just for good measure. You'd better have this kid, you know, because if you don't, your next one might come slightly earlier than it should. Think about that! And, of course, if we have a slightly later abortion, we should definitely be talked down to by a sanctimonious counsellor, because we clearly haven't thought it through at all.
"Come to think of it, has anyone done any research on the effects on men when their wife or girlfriend has an abortion?"
GAH. Fuck off. Seriously, fuck the hell off. "You can't have an abortion because your husband might be sad"? Fuck off, Melanie. Frankly, if he doesn't support me he can go to hell, and it'll be the best place for him. It's my fucking body and no man has any say over what happens to it. Get lost.
Then McDonagh really frightens me by letting me in on her idea of counselling. Remember the guilt-tripping and scaremongering? Yeah, she doesn't want to help us.
"Of course, there is nothing magic about counselling. It depends how it's done. The best and most brutal example of pre-abortion counselling that I can think of is in the film Alfie (the original version, with Michael Caine) when the unfortunate illegal abortionist rattles through all the downsides of the procedure before pocketing his £25, mentioning, if memory serves me correctly, “the injustice to the unborn child”."
She thinks this is "counselling". She also says she'd make a bad counsellor because she'd say "Don't you realise the foetus is human too?" She wouldn't be able to stop herself. This is likely to be much more traumatic than the actual abortion, having some nasty woman call you a slut and a baby-murdering bitch, but what does she care? She has no interest in our mental health - the best form of counselling is the most brutal. If a woman left in tears, she'd be pleased. A job well done, she'd say, and possibly a baby has been saved today. Even though it's not a fucking baby. Hear that? Foetuses are not babies. And nor are pregnant women.
It's been a while since I've done a smackdown, so let's go through this, shall we?
She starts off by going on about how there's no such thing as "value-free abortion research" or, indeed, "value-free interpreters of the research". What this translates to is: Bias! Bias! This and all previous and subsequent information about abortion is biased! You can't trust any of it! She goes on to reveal which side of this particular argument she's on by referring to the APA report as "meat and drink to the pro-choice lobby". Hey, we're a lobby! You know, she's probably right; I welcome anything that might lessen the potential for guilt-tripping and scaremongering. Odd, that. I bet she'd think I was value-free.
The APA has concluded that abortions do not really impact one's mental health. McDonagh has to throw in a quick scaremonger about multiple abortions. She then complains that this research will be used when the UK Parliament votes on a possible amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (how poncy are we?), which would require compulsory counselling for every woman wanting an abortion. She's not happy about this report being used, because the evidence is biased. Come on! We need something to counter the truly excellent research of Nadine Dorries! She then refers to journalists writing about their own experiences with abortion (as Caitlin Moran, among others, did) as "snuff journalism". Yeah, snuff journalism. Look at all these nasty murdering women, "bragging" about their abortions. Yes, Melanie, they're bragging. It's not as though they're doing it to break the taboo or reduce the censure that women get if they consider having an abortion. It's not as if they're writing because they aren't ashamed of their abortions and don't believe that any woman should be. Way to demonise women, though. Why aren't they ashamed of it? Shut up, bitches!
Ah, now we get to it: "My chief objection to abortion isn't the damage that it might cause the woman concerned; I mind that it kills the foetus." In case you missed that, she doesn't really care if abortion does cause huge amounts of mental distress - she just wants to exploit that line of reasoning to protect her own world view, and while we're at it, the imaginary babies. But if we are going to take the silly mental distress thing seriously, we must acknowledge some spurious studies that she's thrown in in order to make herself look academic. Apparently, there are a lot of variables. Who knew? Women are people! Excuse me while I pick myself up off the floor. It really irritates me that she then spends the rest of the article pretending to care about our mental health and how important it is to warn us of the risks, when she's already admitted she doesn't really care.
I have to admit to being highly confused by her next bit. She says that a study which concluded that there was increased risk of "depression, suicide and substance abuse" was criticised for not including information about the backgrounds of the women who had these abortions. She then informs us that some other researcher said: "there is consensus among most social and medical science scholars that a minimum of 10 to 30 per cent of women who abort suffer from serious negative psychological consequences". Oh, consensus, is there? That's what Nadine said. Surely if there was consensus, the APA wouldn't have just told us the opposite? What I really don't get about this is that she's just provided us with a handy rebuttal to that quote - what about the women involved? What are their backgrounds? Do they have a history of depression? She does say something about the APA study being criticised by pro-life groups for this and that, but I have yet to come across a pro-life group that doesn't rely on emotional blackmail and slut-shaming to get their points across.
Bizarrely, McDonagh then complains that MPs are susceptible to research from well-respected sources (well, she says "authoritative-sounding" because she is right and everyone else is wrong). And, y'know, I hate to bring up Nadine and her "reasons" again, but your side really doesn't have a leg to stand on at the moment, Mel. This stuff is coming from a highly-placed academic organisation, and countering that with the Daily Mail just isn't going to cut it. Sorry. She then says this:
"Before the recent Commons vote on whether to restrict the time limit on abortion, research was published that suggested the life chances of premature babies had not increased beyond 24 weeks, despite medical advances. This was extensively quoted in favour of keeping the limit at 24 weeks, even though babies born prematurely self-evidently have problems, or their mothers do. The study had no bearing on ordinary, healthy foetuses, yet was used to see off the attempt to change the time limit on abortion."
This really pisses me off. As I've said before, you cannot painlessly remove a foetus from a woman at 24 or 20 or 16 weeks and place it in an incubator for a few months until it's fully developed and is ready to be sent to an adoption agency. The woman has to carry that unwanted foetus inside her. She's stuck with it. She has to give birth to it, even though she doesn't want to. That's what this all boils down to - McDonagh and her ilk want to force women to give birth. Who cares, really? She's pregnant, not a person. You can opt out of any medical procedure. If you don't want it, you don't have to have it. Even if it would save another person's life, like a kidney transplant, you don't have to do it. We do not have to give birth. Leave us alone. It freaks me out that these forced-birth people think the limit should get lower and lower along with medical and scientific advances. I once had a very early miscarriage. Should the day come when I have to bring it into the hospital to see if they can "save" it?
McDonagh then protests that there must at least be a risk of depression following an abortion, mustn't there? All that other stuff is biased anyway. There must be a risk, and "isn't there a case for warning women of this?" ARGH. Jesus, Melanie, we're grown women. We know what abortion is, we know how we feel about it, and we can make our own damn decisions. Just because a woman has gained an unwanted foetus does not mean that she has lost her mind. We who support choice know what abortions involve, we know that we may or may not feel upset over having one. We do not need to be talked down to by some sanctimonious counsellor who wants to make sure that we really understand sadness. She also advocates a cooling-off period, because we all know that pregnant women are irrational, and also five years old. We shall place her on the naughty step until she sees the error of her ways. Then she chucks in a little more scaremongering, just for good measure. You'd better have this kid, you know, because if you don't, your next one might come slightly earlier than it should. Think about that! And, of course, if we have a slightly later abortion, we should definitely be talked down to by a sanctimonious counsellor, because we clearly haven't thought it through at all.
"Come to think of it, has anyone done any research on the effects on men when their wife or girlfriend has an abortion?"
GAH. Fuck off. Seriously, fuck the hell off. "You can't have an abortion because your husband might be sad"? Fuck off, Melanie. Frankly, if he doesn't support me he can go to hell, and it'll be the best place for him. It's my fucking body and no man has any say over what happens to it. Get lost.
Then McDonagh really frightens me by letting me in on her idea of counselling. Remember the guilt-tripping and scaremongering? Yeah, she doesn't want to help us.
"Of course, there is nothing magic about counselling. It depends how it's done. The best and most brutal example of pre-abortion counselling that I can think of is in the film Alfie (the original version, with Michael Caine) when the unfortunate illegal abortionist rattles through all the downsides of the procedure before pocketing his £25, mentioning, if memory serves me correctly, “the injustice to the unborn child”."
She thinks this is "counselling". She also says she'd make a bad counsellor because she'd say "Don't you realise the foetus is human too?" She wouldn't be able to stop herself. This is likely to be much more traumatic than the actual abortion, having some nasty woman call you a slut and a baby-murdering bitch, but what does she care? She has no interest in our mental health - the best form of counselling is the most brutal. If a woman left in tears, she'd be pleased. A job well done, she'd say, and possibly a baby has been saved today. Even though it's not a fucking baby. Hear that? Foetuses are not babies. And nor are pregnant women.
Monday, 7 July 2008
The "20 Weeks" Shootdown
Nadine Dorries must be stopped. I mentioned this briefly earlier in Feminist Issue Week, but I feel it could use a more comprehensive attack.
So, the site linked has her "20 reasons" why abortion is all bad and wrong and kills babies and shit.
Reason One: "Public, parliamentary and medical opinion is changing on late abortion. 63% of MPs, two thirds of GPs, nearly two thirds of the public and more than three-quarters of women support a reduction in the 24-week upper age limit."
Bollocks: No source for any of this information is provided. Not even a link to highly biased anti-abortion site. For all we know, she could just have made this up. And if 63% of MPs support a reduction, why didn't Dorries' previous limit-reduction bill go through? Could it be that this is a big fat lie? Could it be that the only link marked "evidence" links to an article in the Telegraph written by Dorries herself? No, surely not.
Reason Two: "High profile cases of babies surviving well below 24 weeks like Manchester's Millie McDonagh, born at 22 weeks, and the world's most premature baby, Amillia Taylor, who was born a week younger, both in October 2006."
Bollocks: Ooh, two babies. Two! That's quite the case, Nads. Notice there is no mention here of severe medical problems, or the fact that - hmmm - one cannot in fact painlessly remove an unwanted live foetus from a woman, stick it in an incubator for four months and then put it up for adoption. Women are not incubators.
Reason Three: "High resolution 3D ultrasound images, pioneered by Professor Stuart Campbell, have shown babies in amazing detail 'walking', yawning, stretching and sucking their thumbs in the womb."
Bollocks: So fucking what? This isn't an argument, this is a stupid woolly "oh, but it's a baybeeeee!" line of reasoning. Foetuses are not doing these things in the way babies do them. This is the horrible emotional blackmail of trying to make vulnerable pregnant women believe that as soon as the egg implants, it's a real live baby. It's disgraceful, frankly.
Reason Four: "In top neonatal units, such as in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 80% of babies born at 24 weeks and 66% of babies born at 23 weeks will survive. Recent figures from University College London are similar."
Fucking MINNEAPOLIS. They'll survive in MINNEAPOLIS. For fuck's sake. We're already getting into the repetitive stuff: babies cannot be removed and incubated at this point, which means the woman would still have to go through an unwanted pregnancy for MONTHS and give BIRTH. Also, she yet again links to an article in a right-wing paper in which she herself is quoted extensively. If you're trying to get the law changed, you can't be so fucking sloppy.
Reason Five: "Recent research, such as that by Professor Sunny Anand from the University of Arkansas, has shown that fetuses are well enough developed to feel pain down to 18 weeks gestation."
Bollocks: Yet again, her link is a Daily Mail article which is mostly about her. Not the actual research. Oh, no, we couldn't have that. Also, you can find one person with the title "Professor" who supports any crazy belief. And really, you'd think she could find more than one, because a lot of research goes into this stuff, and why is 80% of her data American? Minnesota? Arkansas?
Reason Six: "Mothers first feel their babies kick at 19 weeks in a first pregnancy and at 17 weeks in a later pregnancy."
Bollocks: That's not an argument. That's stupid emotional blackmail. She just wanted to get "mother" and "baby" into it somewhere. Next.
Reason Seven: "Stories of babies born alive after botched abortions, as young as 16 weeks, are increasingly common and have understandably shocked the public."
Bollocks: All this says to me is that doctors aren't getting enough training. She implies with this that actual live children are produced, as opposed to almost-dead foetuses with no chance whatsoever. Also, this didn't shock me. Frankly, I'd never heard of this, and I keep a pretty close watch on this stuff.
Reason Eight: "The number of abortions carried out between 20 and 24 weeks has been rising in recent years. Lowering the limit to 20 weeks for normal babies will save almost 2,300 young lives per year."
Bollocks: What do you mean "young lives"? It's not a kid, it's a foetus. This one depends entirely on you already believing that it's a kid and has always been a kid. I don't. I'd rather the abortion rate rose than the number of unwanted kids rose. Also, the Telegraph article she links is the most disgusting piece of misogynistic crap. The thrust of it is essentially "women are dirty sluts and unfeeling bitches".
Reason Nine: "Leading public figures including Opposition leader David Cameron are calling for a cut to at least 20 weeks."
Bollocks: Ha! David fucking Cameron is her next reason! I don't even understand why this is important. She's already pretended, sorry, stated using hard, well-sourced and appropriately-linked data, that at least two thirds of everyone supports her campaign, so why does she need to say, "Oh, and he does, too! You've heard of him!"
Reason Ten: "Britain has the most liberal abortion laws in Europe. A termination can be obtained up to 24 weeks of pregnancy - double the limits in France and Germany and six weeks later than in Sweden or Norway."
Bollocks: Erm, so what? Again, this only works if you already think it's an awful, horrible thing. I think this reflects badly on France and Germany (12 weeks? Really? I'd love to know stats for death-by-illegal-abortion from these countries), and it makes me proud that my country is supporting women's rights better than our friends across the channel. It also makes me nervous about the EU, to be honest.
Reason Eleven: "The methods required to abort a post 20 week baby are abhorrent. To avoid a live birth a lethal injection is given into the baby’s heart through the mother’s abdominal wall. The baby is then delivered stillborn or is surgically dismembered and removed from the uterus limb by limb."
Bollocks: More fucking emotional blackmail, and only works if you believe all abortion is infanticide, which it's NOT. Jesus, Nads. Must try harder.
Reason Twelve: "A recent Royal College of Psychiatrists report acknowledges a link between abortion and mental illness. This is worse with late abortions, especially those for fetal abnormality."
Bollocks: What the fuck does that mean? Well, it's a proper link (as in, it takes you to the Royal College of Psychiatrists and not the Daily Mail), and says nothing of the sort. It says "mental disorders can occur for some women during pregnancy and after birth." So, perhaps, it's just that pregnancy can be a pretty bloody traumatic thing to go through. It also says there is no conclusive evidence about links between abortion and mental disorders (NOT mental illness - depression is a mental disorder, but our Nads makes it sound like abortion gives you schizophrenia) and says nothing at all about late abortions or foetal abnormality. She's even spelling 'foetal' the American way, for God's sake. I now know why she hasn't given proper links for any of her other 'reasons'.
Reason Thirteen: "The vast majority of late abortions (after 16 weeks) take place in private clinics but are classified as ‘NHS Agency’ (ie charged to the NHS). Abortions over 20 weeks cost from £1,300 to £1,600 each and there are inevitably financial vested interests involved."
Bollocks: This one is an absolute fucking disgrace. It's like saying that hospitals try to convince you that you need major operations when you don't, because they'll get paid more. This borders on libel, frankly. How dare she accuse doctors of putting off abortions to get more money? Ugh.
Reason Fourteen: "Babies are now undergoing surgery in the womb under 24 weeks, the photograph of Samuel Armas having surgery at 21 weeks for spina bifida has received international attention."
Bollocks: This has nothing to do with anything, except that she wanted to crowbar another real kid in here. That's not a reason. It also reinforces the idea that women aren't really people when they're pregnant, because that must have been a terrible experience for her.
Reason Fifteen: "Very few if any UK graduates are now willing to perform abortions beyond 16 weeks. Almost all doctors performing late abortions in the UK, in BPAS clinics, are from overseas."
Bollocks: And suddenly, we run out of links. How does she know this? Apparently, that's not important. It seems pretty xenophobic to me - "it's those bastard foreigners! You hate foreigners, right?"
Reason Sixteen: "A Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) guideline, supporting an upper limit of 24 weeks, was published in 2004 and needs to be updated in line with the latest evidence on fetal sentience, ultrasound and neonatal survival."
Bollocks: No links to this 'latest evidence'. I maintain that ultrasound is irrelevant, neonatal survival is irrelevant given that the foetus (you're British, Nadine! It's got a fucking O in it!) will generally have to remain in the unwilling woman's body for months on end. I think foetal sentience is bollocks, too, since she seems to relate that directly to the ultrasound stuff. Notice that an actual medical body supported 24 weeks and some crazy MP with no actual fucking work to do is claiming it's wrong. Was she supporting 24 weeks in 2004? I might have to go a-hunting for that information.
Reason Seventeen: "The British Medical Association’s opposition to lowering the limit is not supported by the majority of its members and almost 1,000 BMA members recently signed a petition against attempts to further liberalise BMA policy."
Bollocks: What a confusing sentence. She offers no evidence of the limit not being supported by the majority of BMA members. She does link to the petition, however. The petition invited ME to sign it, and I don't have squat to do with the BMA. This has nothing to do with the Associaton's members at all - it can be signed by any arse on the internet. This woman is such a fucking liar.
Reason Eighteen: "Pregnancy testing kits are freely available at chemists and there is now little excuse for not diagnosing pregnancy long before 20 weeks."
Bollocks: What the fuck? Ooh, because Superdrug sells pregnancy tests, there's 'little excuse' for not knowing you're pregnant. Well, if you're not looking for a fucking pregnancy, that's not necessarily true, is it? Some women don't put much weight on. Some women still have periods. Oh, and you know that foetal abnormality thing? Not so easy to diagnose early. But we can't say that, because then you couldn't blame all the stupid women, could you? Fucking hell, the tone of that 'reason'! I feel like a nine-year-old at a Catholic school being told off by a nun for not doing her homework.
Reason Nineteen: "The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s report recommending retention of the 24 week upper limit was heavily influenced by pro-abortion witnesses."
Bollocks: She links to a Times article. The article talks about the report which was published (it also recommended scrapping the "two doctors must give permission" law and allowing nurses to perform the procedure), which two MPs disagreed with. Can you guess the name of the female one? That's right, Nadine is linking to her own opinions YET AGAIN. For fuck's sake.
Reson Twenty: I can't write this one out, because Reason Twenty is a picture of a foetus face.
Bollocks: Nadine has run out of ideas, and has to resort to pictures. Her brain has melted from all this meticulous research she's been doing. A picture of a foetus face is not an argument. The foetus face comes from the Life Institute. That'll convert the waverers nicely, Nads.
Then she says that all evidence points to cutting the limit, and links to her own fucking article. Really, Nadine. If "all evidence" points that way, show me some of it. Show me any of it. "Evidence" is neither your opinion nor legitimate sources which say nothing related to what you claim they say. If you're going to try and wrest control of my body and hand it over to David Cameron, you're going to have to try harder than that.
So, the site linked has her "20 reasons" why abortion is all bad and wrong and kills babies and shit.
Reason One: "Public, parliamentary and medical opinion is changing on late abortion. 63% of MPs, two thirds of GPs, nearly two thirds of the public and more than three-quarters of women support a reduction in the 24-week upper age limit."
Bollocks: No source for any of this information is provided. Not even a link to highly biased anti-abortion site. For all we know, she could just have made this up. And if 63% of MPs support a reduction, why didn't Dorries' previous limit-reduction bill go through? Could it be that this is a big fat lie? Could it be that the only link marked "evidence" links to an article in the Telegraph written by Dorries herself? No, surely not.
Reason Two: "High profile cases of babies surviving well below 24 weeks like Manchester's Millie McDonagh, born at 22 weeks, and the world's most premature baby, Amillia Taylor, who was born a week younger, both in October 2006."
Bollocks: Ooh, two babies. Two! That's quite the case, Nads. Notice there is no mention here of severe medical problems, or the fact that - hmmm - one cannot in fact painlessly remove an unwanted live foetus from a woman, stick it in an incubator for four months and then put it up for adoption. Women are not incubators.
Reason Three: "High resolution 3D ultrasound images, pioneered by Professor Stuart Campbell, have shown babies in amazing detail 'walking', yawning, stretching and sucking their thumbs in the womb."
Bollocks: So fucking what? This isn't an argument, this is a stupid woolly "oh, but it's a baybeeeee!" line of reasoning. Foetuses are not doing these things in the way babies do them. This is the horrible emotional blackmail of trying to make vulnerable pregnant women believe that as soon as the egg implants, it's a real live baby. It's disgraceful, frankly.
Reason Four: "In top neonatal units, such as in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 80% of babies born at 24 weeks and 66% of babies born at 23 weeks will survive. Recent figures from University College London are similar."
Fucking MINNEAPOLIS. They'll survive in MINNEAPOLIS. For fuck's sake. We're already getting into the repetitive stuff: babies cannot be removed and incubated at this point, which means the woman would still have to go through an unwanted pregnancy for MONTHS and give BIRTH. Also, she yet again links to an article in a right-wing paper in which she herself is quoted extensively. If you're trying to get the law changed, you can't be so fucking sloppy.
Reason Five: "Recent research, such as that by Professor Sunny Anand from the University of Arkansas, has shown that fetuses are well enough developed to feel pain down to 18 weeks gestation."
Bollocks: Yet again, her link is a Daily Mail article which is mostly about her. Not the actual research. Oh, no, we couldn't have that. Also, you can find one person with the title "Professor" who supports any crazy belief. And really, you'd think she could find more than one, because a lot of research goes into this stuff, and why is 80% of her data American? Minnesota? Arkansas?
Reason Six: "Mothers first feel their babies kick at 19 weeks in a first pregnancy and at 17 weeks in a later pregnancy."
Bollocks: That's not an argument. That's stupid emotional blackmail. She just wanted to get "mother" and "baby" into it somewhere. Next.
Reason Seven: "Stories of babies born alive after botched abortions, as young as 16 weeks, are increasingly common and have understandably shocked the public."
Bollocks: All this says to me is that doctors aren't getting enough training. She implies with this that actual live children are produced, as opposed to almost-dead foetuses with no chance whatsoever. Also, this didn't shock me. Frankly, I'd never heard of this, and I keep a pretty close watch on this stuff.
Reason Eight: "The number of abortions carried out between 20 and 24 weeks has been rising in recent years. Lowering the limit to 20 weeks for normal babies will save almost 2,300 young lives per year."
Bollocks: What do you mean "young lives"? It's not a kid, it's a foetus. This one depends entirely on you already believing that it's a kid and has always been a kid. I don't. I'd rather the abortion rate rose than the number of unwanted kids rose. Also, the Telegraph article she links is the most disgusting piece of misogynistic crap. The thrust of it is essentially "women are dirty sluts and unfeeling bitches".
Reason Nine: "Leading public figures including Opposition leader David Cameron are calling for a cut to at least 20 weeks."
Bollocks: Ha! David fucking Cameron is her next reason! I don't even understand why this is important. She's already pretended, sorry, stated using hard, well-sourced and appropriately-linked data, that at least two thirds of everyone supports her campaign, so why does she need to say, "Oh, and he does, too! You've heard of him!"
Reason Ten: "Britain has the most liberal abortion laws in Europe. A termination can be obtained up to 24 weeks of pregnancy - double the limits in France and Germany and six weeks later than in Sweden or Norway."
Bollocks: Erm, so what? Again, this only works if you already think it's an awful, horrible thing. I think this reflects badly on France and Germany (12 weeks? Really? I'd love to know stats for death-by-illegal-abortion from these countries), and it makes me proud that my country is supporting women's rights better than our friends across the channel. It also makes me nervous about the EU, to be honest.
Reason Eleven: "The methods required to abort a post 20 week baby are abhorrent. To avoid a live birth a lethal injection is given into the baby’s heart through the mother’s abdominal wall. The baby is then delivered stillborn or is surgically dismembered and removed from the uterus limb by limb."
Bollocks: More fucking emotional blackmail, and only works if you believe all abortion is infanticide, which it's NOT. Jesus, Nads. Must try harder.
Reason Twelve: "A recent Royal College of Psychiatrists report acknowledges a link between abortion and mental illness. This is worse with late abortions, especially those for fetal abnormality."
Bollocks: What the fuck does that mean? Well, it's a proper link (as in, it takes you to the Royal College of Psychiatrists and not the Daily Mail), and says nothing of the sort. It says "mental disorders can occur for some women during pregnancy and after birth." So, perhaps, it's just that pregnancy can be a pretty bloody traumatic thing to go through. It also says there is no conclusive evidence about links between abortion and mental disorders (NOT mental illness - depression is a mental disorder, but our Nads makes it sound like abortion gives you schizophrenia) and says nothing at all about late abortions or foetal abnormality. She's even spelling 'foetal' the American way, for God's sake. I now know why she hasn't given proper links for any of her other 'reasons'.
Reason Thirteen: "The vast majority of late abortions (after 16 weeks) take place in private clinics but are classified as ‘NHS Agency’ (ie charged to the NHS). Abortions over 20 weeks cost from £1,300 to £1,600 each and there are inevitably financial vested interests involved."
Bollocks: This one is an absolute fucking disgrace. It's like saying that hospitals try to convince you that you need major operations when you don't, because they'll get paid more. This borders on libel, frankly. How dare she accuse doctors of putting off abortions to get more money? Ugh.
Reason Fourteen: "Babies are now undergoing surgery in the womb under 24 weeks, the photograph of Samuel Armas having surgery at 21 weeks for spina bifida has received international attention."
Bollocks: This has nothing to do with anything, except that she wanted to crowbar another real kid in here. That's not a reason. It also reinforces the idea that women aren't really people when they're pregnant, because that must have been a terrible experience for her.
Reason Fifteen: "Very few if any UK graduates are now willing to perform abortions beyond 16 weeks. Almost all doctors performing late abortions in the UK, in BPAS clinics, are from overseas."
Bollocks: And suddenly, we run out of links. How does she know this? Apparently, that's not important. It seems pretty xenophobic to me - "it's those bastard foreigners! You hate foreigners, right?"
Reason Sixteen: "A Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) guideline, supporting an upper limit of 24 weeks, was published in 2004 and needs to be updated in line with the latest evidence on fetal sentience, ultrasound and neonatal survival."
Bollocks: No links to this 'latest evidence'. I maintain that ultrasound is irrelevant, neonatal survival is irrelevant given that the foetus (you're British, Nadine! It's got a fucking O in it!) will generally have to remain in the unwilling woman's body for months on end. I think foetal sentience is bollocks, too, since she seems to relate that directly to the ultrasound stuff. Notice that an actual medical body supported 24 weeks and some crazy MP with no actual fucking work to do is claiming it's wrong. Was she supporting 24 weeks in 2004? I might have to go a-hunting for that information.
Reason Seventeen: "The British Medical Association’s opposition to lowering the limit is not supported by the majority of its members and almost 1,000 BMA members recently signed a petition against attempts to further liberalise BMA policy."
Bollocks: What a confusing sentence. She offers no evidence of the limit not being supported by the majority of BMA members. She does link to the petition, however. The petition invited ME to sign it, and I don't have squat to do with the BMA. This has nothing to do with the Associaton's members at all - it can be signed by any arse on the internet. This woman is such a fucking liar.
Reason Eighteen: "Pregnancy testing kits are freely available at chemists and there is now little excuse for not diagnosing pregnancy long before 20 weeks."
Bollocks: What the fuck? Ooh, because Superdrug sells pregnancy tests, there's 'little excuse' for not knowing you're pregnant. Well, if you're not looking for a fucking pregnancy, that's not necessarily true, is it? Some women don't put much weight on. Some women still have periods. Oh, and you know that foetal abnormality thing? Not so easy to diagnose early. But we can't say that, because then you couldn't blame all the stupid women, could you? Fucking hell, the tone of that 'reason'! I feel like a nine-year-old at a Catholic school being told off by a nun for not doing her homework.
Reason Nineteen: "The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s report recommending retention of the 24 week upper limit was heavily influenced by pro-abortion witnesses."
Bollocks: She links to a Times article. The article talks about the report which was published (it also recommended scrapping the "two doctors must give permission" law and allowing nurses to perform the procedure), which two MPs disagreed with. Can you guess the name of the female one? That's right, Nadine is linking to her own opinions YET AGAIN. For fuck's sake.
Reson Twenty: I can't write this one out, because Reason Twenty is a picture of a foetus face.
Bollocks: Nadine has run out of ideas, and has to resort to pictures. Her brain has melted from all this meticulous research she's been doing. A picture of a foetus face is not an argument. The foetus face comes from the Life Institute. That'll convert the waverers nicely, Nads.
Then she says that all evidence points to cutting the limit, and links to her own fucking article. Really, Nadine. If "all evidence" points that way, show me some of it. Show me any of it. "Evidence" is neither your opinion nor legitimate sources which say nothing related to what you claim they say. If you're going to try and wrest control of my body and hand it over to David Cameron, you're going to have to try harder than that.
Friday, 27 June 2008
Why Nobody Should Vote For Cameron
I just feel the need to make a couple of points in regard to this, which I wrote just after the votes on the abortion limit and access to IVF were cast (both, surprisingly, to my satisfaction). I want to clarify a couple of things, and it also gives me an opportunity to have another go at Cameron.
It is frankly ridiculous that in this day and age our MPs are still obsessed with heteronormative parenting - "Father, father, father!" says Duncan Smith, but I did that last time - and still convinced that abortion is really a bit icky. We're not America, so we don't even attempt (at this stage, anyway) to outright ban it, but enough MPs are willing to go on record whining and crying about the poor little dead babies. That sentence makes me wish I weren't allergic to LOLcat speak, but I just cannot write "teh p00r ded baybeeez" as though it's a reasonable journalistic or literary device. Even after the Bill was defeated, they just can't let it lie and have to get up and hurl themselves at it again. The original Bill offered MPs the option to vote for: no change, limit lowered to 22 weeks, limit lowered to 20 weeks, or limit lowered to 12 weeks. The Times helpfully printed a guide as to which members of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet voted for which (and I will try and find it), and the three Labour MPs who voted for 12 weeks were all Catholic. Even most of the Tories shied away from voting for 12 weeks. I just want to make clear that there is a HUGE religious motivation behind this. David Cameron, the Tory leader, voted to lower it to 22 weeks. He also voted for the stupid "father figure" bill.
Now, there is no real reason to vote for this. It is not a medical issue. It is not something our doctors have a problem with, unless they're religious doctors. Since a vote for a lower limit would also be counted as a vote for the 22 weeks, we can rule out Cameron as a religious man hedging his bets. I suspect, too, that Cameron has a smiliar position to Blair on religious PMs (i.e. that we the British public will cease to trust you because you're a nutter, which is true). There is only one message that a vote for a 22-week limit from an aspiring Prime Minister sends out: I Am Willing To Be Persuaded. He won't vote for the very low limits because that will turn off the young women, but it also says to the nutters with their overblown rhetoric and emotional blackmail, as we can see here, that he might be talked into seeing things their way. Reason 20, by the way, is a picture of a foetus-face. I will make a couple of comments on these "reasons": several involve extremely isolated cases of one or two, and one involves surgery in the womb, which must be fucking awful for the woman (yes, there's a woman. The foetus is inside her). Babies can survive at 24 weeks in TOP NEONATAL UNITS such as fucking MINNEAPOLIS. Oh, that's a good idea. Let's just send every pregnant woman to Minneapolis! Fucking hell, this is about British law. Don't bring in bloody Minneapolis. Several reasons are "oh, but it's a baby!" crap, and one of them is that David Cameron supports a cut. Let me explain why.
David Cameron has absolutely no opinions on anything, because opinions are not politically expedient. He certainly has no opinions when it comes to this sort of equal-rights stuff, because some people don't like that and he doesn't want to alienate them. Mmmm... precious votes. My opposition to Barack Obama becoming US President is precisely because he reminds me so much of Cameron, with his vague language and refusal to vote on anything contentious. I once saw a post in support of him comparing his position to that of John McCain, and the first two pro-Obama points were "he has stated no position on this". Classic Cameron. He wants us to believe that he cares about the imaginary babies, but also about the women, which is a fucking lie. Back when he first became leader, he did an interview with Cosmopolitan, in which his reply to all the journalist's questions about women's issues was basically, "I sympathise, but I'm not going to do anything about it." He informed us that he supported the reduction of the abortion limit to 22 or 20 weeks, and that he wasn't planning to do squat about rape crisis centres (my city doesn't even have one) because "we don't have the budget." Look, asshole, if Boris fucking Johnson can find the budget for THREE new ones in London, you can do something about cities without any, OK? Since then, Cameron has not made abortion or equal rights any part of his agenda, waiting instead to jump on the bandwagon of someone like Nadine Dorries. This way, he's not pushing for women to give up control of their bodies, but it slyly shows folks like Cardinal Arsehole that Cameron and the new Caring Conservatives could well be brought around to his point of view.
Ever since Brown took over from Blair, I've been wondering what the hell I'm going to do when an election comes round, because I really don't like Brown. He actually creeps me out, and I don't really trust him. Lies and war and all, it was a reasonably easy decision for me to cast my first ever General Election vote for Blair. Brown? Not so easy. I feel like he thinks of us as being in his way. However, Cameron has made up my mind for me now. I will vote Brown because HE DOESN'T CAST BIGOTED VOTES. He doesn't vote for bizarre throwback amendments demanding that some sort of man be around to help out. He doesn't put himself in this sort of company. He doesn't vote to demand that women give up control of their bodies. Cameron, on the other hand, seems willing to be persuaded that the ownership of a woman's body should transfer over to a foetus until said foetus is done with it. I will not vote for that. It's not even his conviction that that's the right thing to do; he's just happy to allow someone else's convictions to govern his decisions if he thinks it'll get him through that big black door.
Cameron, listen up: I will never, ever vote for a bigot. I will tell everyone I know what a bigot you are, and they won't vote for you either. Your votes have been homophobic and misogynistic, and I cannot and will not support that. If you want any hope in hell of getting my vote, and the vote of young women like me, understand this: It's not a baby, it's a foetus. Until it is no longer living inside the mother, it isn't and should not be considered a baby, from either a legal or political standpoint. Sure, emotionally, it can be a baby, but you are not here to deal in emotional reactions. You are not here to legislate personal ethics. You are here to represent and protect the best interests of the people in your country, INCLUDING WOMEN and not including bloody foetuses (foeti?). My uterus is not a pawn for you to risk in the political chess game. My uterus is not a small sacrifice you may make in order to win more seats. YOU WILL NOT DO THIS. I WILL NOT LET YOU. Last time I wrote about this, I offered the assumption that you were just a nice guy who loves his kids and couldn't imagine not wanting them. I'm still willing to believe that - I'm sure you're basically a nice guy. But you cannot make political decisions based on that sort of fluff. You cannot assume, as I said before, that every man is like you and every woman is like your wife. You cannot think in the sentimental terms of "oh, but it's a baby! Aren't babies lovely!" You may be swayed by technological advancements which can keep premature babies alive, but you're then assuming that any woman who doesn't want said baby can just pop it out at 24 weeks and carry on. No, she can't. She has MONTHS left to carry that thing around. It's painful, it's uncomfortable, it's emotionally devastating for someone who doesn't want a child, and she's stuck with it. Don't chirpily tell her she can just have it adopted. Don't tell her just to hold on when what she really wants to do is scrape it out with a coat hanger. You think she won't? Have you ever known desperation?
When it comes to your vote on the "Father figure" bill, you are out of touch at best and seriously homophobic at worst. A child needs loving parents, but why on earth do they need one of each gender? From what I know of this bill, it comes in part from straight-up gay-bashing and genuine, irrational fear of Child Seeing Gays (stand up, Sir Patrick Cormack), and in part from this strange idea that men are this and women are that. A child needs a woman to give it cuddles and a man to play sports with it, or something. I know it would make things easier for the government, but even if you stretch to name all qualities either masculine or feminine, you will find that in a sample of men and women, none will have all of these qualities and most will have a significant proportion of the other gender's qualities. People don't divide into boxes like that. If you're pro-cute babies, why not allow a couple that really wants one to conceive, instead of forcing a child on a woman who doesn't want one? I assume that as an intelligent man who hopes to run Great Britain would never dare tell a woman that she should have been more careful and must now deal with the consequences. Why can't two women have a kid and raise it together, if they're fully committed to parenthood and the wellbeing of their child? Why not? Why do they have to prove there's a man around somewhere? What is the logic? Seriously, tell me. Then come to your damn senses, you whacking great bigot.
Wow, that was longer than I planned. Next entry will not revolve around my uterus, honest.
It is frankly ridiculous that in this day and age our MPs are still obsessed with heteronormative parenting - "Father, father, father!" says Duncan Smith, but I did that last time - and still convinced that abortion is really a bit icky. We're not America, so we don't even attempt (at this stage, anyway) to outright ban it, but enough MPs are willing to go on record whining and crying about the poor little dead babies. That sentence makes me wish I weren't allergic to LOLcat speak, but I just cannot write "teh p00r ded baybeeez" as though it's a reasonable journalistic or literary device. Even after the Bill was defeated, they just can't let it lie and have to get up and hurl themselves at it again. The original Bill offered MPs the option to vote for: no change, limit lowered to 22 weeks, limit lowered to 20 weeks, or limit lowered to 12 weeks. The Times helpfully printed a guide as to which members of the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet voted for which (and I will try and find it), and the three Labour MPs who voted for 12 weeks were all Catholic. Even most of the Tories shied away from voting for 12 weeks. I just want to make clear that there is a HUGE religious motivation behind this. David Cameron, the Tory leader, voted to lower it to 22 weeks. He also voted for the stupid "father figure" bill.
Now, there is no real reason to vote for this. It is not a medical issue. It is not something our doctors have a problem with, unless they're religious doctors. Since a vote for a lower limit would also be counted as a vote for the 22 weeks, we can rule out Cameron as a religious man hedging his bets. I suspect, too, that Cameron has a smiliar position to Blair on religious PMs (i.e. that we the British public will cease to trust you because you're a nutter, which is true). There is only one message that a vote for a 22-week limit from an aspiring Prime Minister sends out: I Am Willing To Be Persuaded. He won't vote for the very low limits because that will turn off the young women, but it also says to the nutters with their overblown rhetoric and emotional blackmail, as we can see here, that he might be talked into seeing things their way. Reason 20, by the way, is a picture of a foetus-face. I will make a couple of comments on these "reasons": several involve extremely isolated cases of one or two, and one involves surgery in the womb, which must be fucking awful for the woman (yes, there's a woman. The foetus is inside her). Babies can survive at 24 weeks in TOP NEONATAL UNITS such as fucking MINNEAPOLIS. Oh, that's a good idea. Let's just send every pregnant woman to Minneapolis! Fucking hell, this is about British law. Don't bring in bloody Minneapolis. Several reasons are "oh, but it's a baby!" crap, and one of them is that David Cameron supports a cut. Let me explain why.
David Cameron has absolutely no opinions on anything, because opinions are not politically expedient. He certainly has no opinions when it comes to this sort of equal-rights stuff, because some people don't like that and he doesn't want to alienate them. Mmmm... precious votes. My opposition to Barack Obama becoming US President is precisely because he reminds me so much of Cameron, with his vague language and refusal to vote on anything contentious. I once saw a post in support of him comparing his position to that of John McCain, and the first two pro-Obama points were "he has stated no position on this". Classic Cameron. He wants us to believe that he cares about the imaginary babies, but also about the women, which is a fucking lie. Back when he first became leader, he did an interview with Cosmopolitan, in which his reply to all the journalist's questions about women's issues was basically, "I sympathise, but I'm not going to do anything about it." He informed us that he supported the reduction of the abortion limit to 22 or 20 weeks, and that he wasn't planning to do squat about rape crisis centres (my city doesn't even have one) because "we don't have the budget." Look, asshole, if Boris fucking Johnson can find the budget for THREE new ones in London, you can do something about cities without any, OK? Since then, Cameron has not made abortion or equal rights any part of his agenda, waiting instead to jump on the bandwagon of someone like Nadine Dorries. This way, he's not pushing for women to give up control of their bodies, but it slyly shows folks like Cardinal Arsehole that Cameron and the new Caring Conservatives could well be brought around to his point of view.
Ever since Brown took over from Blair, I've been wondering what the hell I'm going to do when an election comes round, because I really don't like Brown. He actually creeps me out, and I don't really trust him. Lies and war and all, it was a reasonably easy decision for me to cast my first ever General Election vote for Blair. Brown? Not so easy. I feel like he thinks of us as being in his way. However, Cameron has made up my mind for me now. I will vote Brown because HE DOESN'T CAST BIGOTED VOTES. He doesn't vote for bizarre throwback amendments demanding that some sort of man be around to help out. He doesn't put himself in this sort of company. He doesn't vote to demand that women give up control of their bodies. Cameron, on the other hand, seems willing to be persuaded that the ownership of a woman's body should transfer over to a foetus until said foetus is done with it. I will not vote for that. It's not even his conviction that that's the right thing to do; he's just happy to allow someone else's convictions to govern his decisions if he thinks it'll get him through that big black door.
Cameron, listen up: I will never, ever vote for a bigot. I will tell everyone I know what a bigot you are, and they won't vote for you either. Your votes have been homophobic and misogynistic, and I cannot and will not support that. If you want any hope in hell of getting my vote, and the vote of young women like me, understand this: It's not a baby, it's a foetus. Until it is no longer living inside the mother, it isn't and should not be considered a baby, from either a legal or political standpoint. Sure, emotionally, it can be a baby, but you are not here to deal in emotional reactions. You are not here to legislate personal ethics. You are here to represent and protect the best interests of the people in your country, INCLUDING WOMEN and not including bloody foetuses (foeti?). My uterus is not a pawn for you to risk in the political chess game. My uterus is not a small sacrifice you may make in order to win more seats. YOU WILL NOT DO THIS. I WILL NOT LET YOU. Last time I wrote about this, I offered the assumption that you were just a nice guy who loves his kids and couldn't imagine not wanting them. I'm still willing to believe that - I'm sure you're basically a nice guy. But you cannot make political decisions based on that sort of fluff. You cannot assume, as I said before, that every man is like you and every woman is like your wife. You cannot think in the sentimental terms of "oh, but it's a baby! Aren't babies lovely!" You may be swayed by technological advancements which can keep premature babies alive, but you're then assuming that any woman who doesn't want said baby can just pop it out at 24 weeks and carry on. No, she can't. She has MONTHS left to carry that thing around. It's painful, it's uncomfortable, it's emotionally devastating for someone who doesn't want a child, and she's stuck with it. Don't chirpily tell her she can just have it adopted. Don't tell her just to hold on when what she really wants to do is scrape it out with a coat hanger. You think she won't? Have you ever known desperation?
When it comes to your vote on the "Father figure" bill, you are out of touch at best and seriously homophobic at worst. A child needs loving parents, but why on earth do they need one of each gender? From what I know of this bill, it comes in part from straight-up gay-bashing and genuine, irrational fear of Child Seeing Gays (stand up, Sir Patrick Cormack), and in part from this strange idea that men are this and women are that. A child needs a woman to give it cuddles and a man to play sports with it, or something. I know it would make things easier for the government, but even if you stretch to name all qualities either masculine or feminine, you will find that in a sample of men and women, none will have all of these qualities and most will have a significant proportion of the other gender's qualities. People don't divide into boxes like that. If you're pro-cute babies, why not allow a couple that really wants one to conceive, instead of forcing a child on a woman who doesn't want one? I assume that as an intelligent man who hopes to run Great Britain would never dare tell a woman that she should have been more careful and must now deal with the consequences. Why can't two women have a kid and raise it together, if they're fully committed to parenthood and the wellbeing of their child? Why not? Why do they have to prove there's a man around somewhere? What is the logic? Seriously, tell me. Then come to your damn senses, you whacking great bigot.
Wow, that was longer than I planned. Next entry will not revolve around my uterus, honest.
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Please, Think Of The Children
Yay!
Yay!
Gordon Brown has earned himself two points. He voted for the 24-week abortion limit, and he voted to get rid of the heterosexist guff about a child's "need for a father". Well done, Gordon, you impressed me. The Tories, not so much.
First and foremost, I do not understand how, in this day and age, a man like Sir Patrick Cormack can have anything to do with the running of our country. He said: "A child that is deliberately brought into the world with no desire that there should be a man or a woman who is the parent is brought in with a disadvantage." This makes no sense whatsoever, and I sort of hope the BBC did that on purpose because they hate him, but translated into English, it means, "Lesbians shouldn't be parents."
I sincerely hope that David Cameron, a man whom I royally despise but who claims to be leading the charge to modernise his party, will realise that such sentiments are not endearing the Conservatives to the young generation. I seem to be his target voter; a young, white, middle-class woman. Young, white, middle-class women have no truck whatsoever with this sort of insidious gay-bashing. If Cameron ever wishes to win my respect, he must acknowledge that this ridiculous "need for a father" motion tabled by Iain Duncan Smith (the most useless Tory leader ever, and that ought to tell you something) comes out of an out-of-date view of Britain and is representative of his party's subconscious - or, indeed, conscious, in the case of Sir Patrick - bigotries. "Need for supportive parenting" is exactly the correct way to phrase it. When Duncan Smith and his ilk tell us that children who grow up without a father are more likely to go off the rails, they're ignoring a big chunk of the story. I know a lot of people who grew up without fathers, and they're fine. The ones that aren't fine are the ones whose fathers were present and neglectful, or present one day a month. They're the ones who grew up with abuse, casual insulting remarks tossed out to get them to shut up, and not so much as a card or phone call on their birthdays. These are the kids who feel deprived, who feel they've done something wrong to drive Daddy away and end up with no sense of self-worth, or who just can't get Daddy to acknowledge them and end up in deeper and deeper trouble. This is still a generalisation, but it's far more accurate than "single-parent families fuck kids up."
We will keep our 24-week abortion limit, no thanks to Mr Cameron, who voted to lower it by two weeks. Why two weeks? Lord knows. The BBC is careful to point out that all the Catholic Labour ministers voted to lower it to 12. Yeah, fucking 12. Nice one, Ruth Kelly. Someone called Edward Leigh is yacking on about sanctity as though he's a right-wing American pundit, and frankly he is so insignificant that I have nothing else to say about him. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor turned up in the Times supporting everything I argue against and vice versa, using the phrase "incremental change". Remember this, ye who value your freedom: this two-week-at-a-time knockdown is part of the plan to erode your rights completely. If, God forbid, he should ever get his two-week knockdown, he'll be out there again arguing for another two weeks. And another, and another. Before you know it, we're in Ireland. You could have stayed there, y'know, Murph.
There are numerous things I could say about these votes, but I'll stick, for now, to this one: in general, the people voting to restrict IVF were the people voting to slash the abortion limit. This strikes me as a wee bit illogical. These people insist that it's absolutely vital that a baby has a mother and a father, but if a woman accidentally gets pregnant, the man pisses off and the woman doesn't want it, well, tough. Why isn't it better for a loving same-sex couple, or a single woman who wants a child enough to go to these expensive and invasive lengths, to have their baby than for a frightened, abandoned teenager to be unable to choose not to? I am feeling charitable, and so I'll assume the best. I'll assume that these men (as the vast majority are in the Commons) are loving and devoted parents who cannot imagine their babies being unwanted, who cannot imagine abandoning a woman pregnant with their child, who help to change the nappies and get up in the night and play football and read stories and consider there to be no greater joy than the laughter of their sons and daughters. Excellent. But guys, not all men are you. Some men cannot think of anything worse than having a baby. Some men will panic. Some men aren't ready, and have the luxury that women don't of just fucking off. Some men are just assholes. I know men who, variously, forget their children's birthdays, dump them with someone else on their visitation days, run the other way if they see mother and baby in the street, deny the child's existence to their friends, yell at the child, hit the child, hate the child. I know men who conceived children in wedlock - the Conservative lucky charm - and after divorcing the mother, try as hard as they can never to see the kids again. I'll assume, also, that your wives were delighted to be pregnant, wanted children, were ecstatic over the prospect of giving birth to your little one. Do you, any of you, have any idea what it's like to be pregnant and alone? To take an equal part in an 'accident' for which you alone are now reponsible? Do you have any idea what it's like to have something growing in you and hate it with a vicious passion, while sanctimonious arses like you are going on about the sanctity of life, and how abortions are 'social' and calling that horrible little ball of cells your 'baby'? It's not a fucking baby.
I wish people would stop going on about 'tradition' and lamenting the loss of 'traditional family'. I don't want the kind of tradition that forces women to have babies they don't want, and forces couples to shackle themselves together for eternity because one night has unexpected consequences. Duncan Smith complains that by removing the "need for a father" clause, we undermine the traditional family; well, duh. Some people aren't wired that way, mate. We're not all born traditional. Some people would love to be parents. They would love to devote themselves to raising a child. And if they happen to be a pair of women or a pair of men, so fucking what? When Catholic adoption agencies were trying to get themselves excepted from the "no homophobia" law - to ask for Government-sanctioned bigotry takes some nerve, I must admit - numerous commentators pointed out that Catholic adoption agencies took on the most difficult, unplaceable kids, and the people most likely to adopt one of these kids were gay couples. Instead of taking a lesson from this, the agencies threatened to shut down. To paraphrase Dara O Briain, essentially their stance was: "If you won't let us do what we want, we shall release the children into the wild."
Memo to Britain: The Conservative party is still nursing its bigotries. Please do not forget this next time Cameron starts going on about recycling in modern Britain.
Memo to Conservatives: For the love of God, move on. It's 2008. We can't still be proposing laws that basically say "Gays are weird".
Memo to Murphy-O'Connor: I still hate you, and everything you stand for.
Won't somebody please think of the children?
Yay!
Gordon Brown has earned himself two points. He voted for the 24-week abortion limit, and he voted to get rid of the heterosexist guff about a child's "need for a father". Well done, Gordon, you impressed me. The Tories, not so much.
First and foremost, I do not understand how, in this day and age, a man like Sir Patrick Cormack can have anything to do with the running of our country. He said: "A child that is deliberately brought into the world with no desire that there should be a man or a woman who is the parent is brought in with a disadvantage." This makes no sense whatsoever, and I sort of hope the BBC did that on purpose because they hate him, but translated into English, it means, "Lesbians shouldn't be parents."
I sincerely hope that David Cameron, a man whom I royally despise but who claims to be leading the charge to modernise his party, will realise that such sentiments are not endearing the Conservatives to the young generation. I seem to be his target voter; a young, white, middle-class woman. Young, white, middle-class women have no truck whatsoever with this sort of insidious gay-bashing. If Cameron ever wishes to win my respect, he must acknowledge that this ridiculous "need for a father" motion tabled by Iain Duncan Smith (the most useless Tory leader ever, and that ought to tell you something) comes out of an out-of-date view of Britain and is representative of his party's subconscious - or, indeed, conscious, in the case of Sir Patrick - bigotries. "Need for supportive parenting" is exactly the correct way to phrase it. When Duncan Smith and his ilk tell us that children who grow up without a father are more likely to go off the rails, they're ignoring a big chunk of the story. I know a lot of people who grew up without fathers, and they're fine. The ones that aren't fine are the ones whose fathers were present and neglectful, or present one day a month. They're the ones who grew up with abuse, casual insulting remarks tossed out to get them to shut up, and not so much as a card or phone call on their birthdays. These are the kids who feel deprived, who feel they've done something wrong to drive Daddy away and end up with no sense of self-worth, or who just can't get Daddy to acknowledge them and end up in deeper and deeper trouble. This is still a generalisation, but it's far more accurate than "single-parent families fuck kids up."
We will keep our 24-week abortion limit, no thanks to Mr Cameron, who voted to lower it by two weeks. Why two weeks? Lord knows. The BBC is careful to point out that all the Catholic Labour ministers voted to lower it to 12. Yeah, fucking 12. Nice one, Ruth Kelly. Someone called Edward Leigh is yacking on about sanctity as though he's a right-wing American pundit, and frankly he is so insignificant that I have nothing else to say about him. Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor turned up in the Times supporting everything I argue against and vice versa, using the phrase "incremental change". Remember this, ye who value your freedom: this two-week-at-a-time knockdown is part of the plan to erode your rights completely. If, God forbid, he should ever get his two-week knockdown, he'll be out there again arguing for another two weeks. And another, and another. Before you know it, we're in Ireland. You could have stayed there, y'know, Murph.
There are numerous things I could say about these votes, but I'll stick, for now, to this one: in general, the people voting to restrict IVF were the people voting to slash the abortion limit. This strikes me as a wee bit illogical. These people insist that it's absolutely vital that a baby has a mother and a father, but if a woman accidentally gets pregnant, the man pisses off and the woman doesn't want it, well, tough. Why isn't it better for a loving same-sex couple, or a single woman who wants a child enough to go to these expensive and invasive lengths, to have their baby than for a frightened, abandoned teenager to be unable to choose not to? I am feeling charitable, and so I'll assume the best. I'll assume that these men (as the vast majority are in the Commons) are loving and devoted parents who cannot imagine their babies being unwanted, who cannot imagine abandoning a woman pregnant with their child, who help to change the nappies and get up in the night and play football and read stories and consider there to be no greater joy than the laughter of their sons and daughters. Excellent. But guys, not all men are you. Some men cannot think of anything worse than having a baby. Some men will panic. Some men aren't ready, and have the luxury that women don't of just fucking off. Some men are just assholes. I know men who, variously, forget their children's birthdays, dump them with someone else on their visitation days, run the other way if they see mother and baby in the street, deny the child's existence to their friends, yell at the child, hit the child, hate the child. I know men who conceived children in wedlock - the Conservative lucky charm - and after divorcing the mother, try as hard as they can never to see the kids again. I'll assume, also, that your wives were delighted to be pregnant, wanted children, were ecstatic over the prospect of giving birth to your little one. Do you, any of you, have any idea what it's like to be pregnant and alone? To take an equal part in an 'accident' for which you alone are now reponsible? Do you have any idea what it's like to have something growing in you and hate it with a vicious passion, while sanctimonious arses like you are going on about the sanctity of life, and how abortions are 'social' and calling that horrible little ball of cells your 'baby'? It's not a fucking baby.
I wish people would stop going on about 'tradition' and lamenting the loss of 'traditional family'. I don't want the kind of tradition that forces women to have babies they don't want, and forces couples to shackle themselves together for eternity because one night has unexpected consequences. Duncan Smith complains that by removing the "need for a father" clause, we undermine the traditional family; well, duh. Some people aren't wired that way, mate. We're not all born traditional. Some people would love to be parents. They would love to devote themselves to raising a child. And if they happen to be a pair of women or a pair of men, so fucking what? When Catholic adoption agencies were trying to get themselves excepted from the "no homophobia" law - to ask for Government-sanctioned bigotry takes some nerve, I must admit - numerous commentators pointed out that Catholic adoption agencies took on the most difficult, unplaceable kids, and the people most likely to adopt one of these kids were gay couples. Instead of taking a lesson from this, the agencies threatened to shut down. To paraphrase Dara O Briain, essentially their stance was: "If you won't let us do what we want, we shall release the children into the wild."
Memo to Britain: The Conservative party is still nursing its bigotries. Please do not forget this next time Cameron starts going on about recycling in modern Britain.
Memo to Conservatives: For the love of God, move on. It's 2008. We can't still be proposing laws that basically say "Gays are weird".
Memo to Murphy-O'Connor: I still hate you, and everything you stand for.
Won't somebody please think of the children?
Saturday, 29 March 2008
Oh, Good, It's Cardinal Arsehole
He's back. And he's still annoying me.
I've done a little ranting about this elsewhere, in times of yore (well, last week, actually). The Embryology bill is getting on my nerves partly because of Gordon Brown - more on that another time - but mostly because Cardinal Arsehole keeps butting his cassock into political affairs and telling Catholic MPs how to vote. This was a particular horror. But Cardinal Arsehole (no, he doesn't get a name. If he wanted me to use his proper name he wouldn't have compared abortion in Scotland to the Dunblane massacre) has been running his mouth about this new bill, particularly in his Easter sermon. Now, I admit that the last time I was in a church for anything other than a wedding or a christening I was nine and in the Brownie Guides, but isn't an Easter sermon supposed to talk about, well, Jesus? Is he not the point of Easter sermons? Crucifixion, resurrection and all that jazz? I have read the Bible, and I'm fairly sure the story doesn't go, "And Jesus said, Fear not, for I shall rise again, spliced with the DNA of an Easter bunny." That's actually not a bad metaphor for Easter, though.
Inner workings of the church aside, why is Cardinal Arsehole now getting to act all magnanimous that he's willing to talk to scientists? Why should they have to convince him of anything, so he'll allow Catholic MPs to vote for the bill? I really don't have a problem with politicians voting their conscience (not in this country, anyway - if I were an American it might make me a teensy bit nervous), but I sure as hell don't want them all voting Cardinal Arsehole's conscience. If you read the article, the guy pushing for this meeting is a Catholic who wants to support the bill. But Cardinal Arsehole needs to say it's OK before he votes for it. NO. Keep your damn religion out of my government. As a guidance for your own personal morals and ethics, fine. If I were an MP I would always keep feminist principles in mind when voting on a tricky bill, but I wouldn't call up Gloria Steinem and ask her what the right answer is. If you're involved in running the country, you should be able to make your own damn mind up.
The BBC's comment page, which is a bit of a breeding ground for ill-informed opinions and improper use of the shift key, had some real gems when Cardinal Arsehole first started throwing his weight around. I won't pretend to know too much about embryonic research, but I have managed to grasp that no, scientists will not be creating some sort of man/cow hybrid which will lumber around in a field and shit on the floor of the bus. The most annoying comment, though, and it recurs a lot, is that "England is not a secular country, so the Cardinal has every right to interfere."
First of all, ARGH. Second, we are pretty darn secular, actually. Third, in case you haven't noticed, Catholicism and the Church of England are DIFFERENT FUCKING FAITHS. The Queen is head of the Church of England. She doesn't have squat to do with Catholicism. Catholics are legally banned from becoming monarch and/or advising the Queen about state and religious matters. Cardinal Arsehole is a Catholic, and so has absolutely no right to interfere with the government. Jesus. Admittedly, I'd be no more impressed if an Anglican leader tried it, and oddly enough everyone was quick to call for his resignation in that case. He doesn't seem to have done that, by the way - I knew I wasn't kicking up enough of a stink for it remain in the forefront of everyone's mind. Please note: dammit.
The British, it has to be said, don't like religion, although we don't mind people believing in God or praying or going to church or what have you. What bothers us is religion in the mind of someone powerful. Tony Blair is Catholic, but he waited until he'd left office to officially convert because he knew we wouldn't like it (just to be clear, nobody could care less now). He said that the English believe if you're religious, you're a nutter, and I'm very happy he thinks so. Particularly as this lovely bishop immediately informed us all that if Blair had been inclined to discuss his faith, it would have influenced a lot of his decisions.
Now, one would assume that if Blair's faith has been so vitally important to him over the years, he would have used Catholicism as a moral guide anyway. Yes? So why is it such a shame that he never talked about it? Why would it matter? I don't think it has anything to do with Blair's personal leadership; it's about the public knowing that He's One Of Us. And you have to admit, he'd have been a much more effective display piece than Ann Widdecombe, who incidentally also made comment about Blair's Catholicism. He'd voted against Church teachings on various issues, such as abortion, and her implication is that perhaps he isn't, or wasn't, a proper Catholic. This is my point: Blair was a pro-choice leader. The only way he could stick to this conviction in public was to keep his Catholicism quiet. Cardinal Arsehole, Ann "Celebrity Fit Club" Widdecombe and other guardians of Catholic decency would have hounded him mercilessly. How can you be Catholic and say that? How can you be Catholic and vote that way? How can you be Catholic and claim that anything is an individual's choice? (sorry, that was snide). They could quite easily hound his minister, who could quite easily start refusing communion just as Cardinal Arsehole recommends for MPs who won't do as he says. It's an easy form of blackmail.
For clarity's sake, I'm not trying to rag on the Catholics here. I don't care what people believe. What I believe, as I said in my first post, is that whatever it is should be kept firmly to themselves. I don't want to have to deal with religion becoming as intertwined with politics as it is in the US. Apart from anything else, when the religions start moving in - and chances are, as the Matthew Parris article up the page suggests, that when one starts all the rest will follow - it pushes out those of us without a man in power to speak for us. Pagans don't have it, atheists don't have it, people who believe in something but have no specified church don't have it. So when this kind of thing crops up, I will get a little mean. But it's Life of Brian all over again - it's not your religion, it's the way you're dealing with it. And I'm not having it. No way.
I've done a little ranting about this elsewhere, in times of yore (well, last week, actually). The Embryology bill is getting on my nerves partly because of Gordon Brown - more on that another time - but mostly because Cardinal Arsehole keeps butting his cassock into political affairs and telling Catholic MPs how to vote. This was a particular horror. But Cardinal Arsehole (no, he doesn't get a name. If he wanted me to use his proper name he wouldn't have compared abortion in Scotland to the Dunblane massacre) has been running his mouth about this new bill, particularly in his Easter sermon. Now, I admit that the last time I was in a church for anything other than a wedding or a christening I was nine and in the Brownie Guides, but isn't an Easter sermon supposed to talk about, well, Jesus? Is he not the point of Easter sermons? Crucifixion, resurrection and all that jazz? I have read the Bible, and I'm fairly sure the story doesn't go, "And Jesus said, Fear not, for I shall rise again, spliced with the DNA of an Easter bunny." That's actually not a bad metaphor for Easter, though.
Inner workings of the church aside, why is Cardinal Arsehole now getting to act all magnanimous that he's willing to talk to scientists? Why should they have to convince him of anything, so he'll allow Catholic MPs to vote for the bill? I really don't have a problem with politicians voting their conscience (not in this country, anyway - if I were an American it might make me a teensy bit nervous), but I sure as hell don't want them all voting Cardinal Arsehole's conscience. If you read the article, the guy pushing for this meeting is a Catholic who wants to support the bill. But Cardinal Arsehole needs to say it's OK before he votes for it. NO. Keep your damn religion out of my government. As a guidance for your own personal morals and ethics, fine. If I were an MP I would always keep feminist principles in mind when voting on a tricky bill, but I wouldn't call up Gloria Steinem and ask her what the right answer is. If you're involved in running the country, you should be able to make your own damn mind up.
The BBC's comment page, which is a bit of a breeding ground for ill-informed opinions and improper use of the shift key, had some real gems when Cardinal Arsehole first started throwing his weight around. I won't pretend to know too much about embryonic research, but I have managed to grasp that no, scientists will not be creating some sort of man/cow hybrid which will lumber around in a field and shit on the floor of the bus. The most annoying comment, though, and it recurs a lot, is that "England is not a secular country, so the Cardinal has every right to interfere."
First of all, ARGH. Second, we are pretty darn secular, actually. Third, in case you haven't noticed, Catholicism and the Church of England are DIFFERENT FUCKING FAITHS. The Queen is head of the Church of England. She doesn't have squat to do with Catholicism. Catholics are legally banned from becoming monarch and/or advising the Queen about state and religious matters. Cardinal Arsehole is a Catholic, and so has absolutely no right to interfere with the government. Jesus. Admittedly, I'd be no more impressed if an Anglican leader tried it, and oddly enough everyone was quick to call for his resignation in that case. He doesn't seem to have done that, by the way - I knew I wasn't kicking up enough of a stink for it remain in the forefront of everyone's mind. Please note: dammit.
The British, it has to be said, don't like religion, although we don't mind people believing in God or praying or going to church or what have you. What bothers us is religion in the mind of someone powerful. Tony Blair is Catholic, but he waited until he'd left office to officially convert because he knew we wouldn't like it (just to be clear, nobody could care less now). He said that the English believe if you're religious, you're a nutter, and I'm very happy he thinks so. Particularly as this lovely bishop immediately informed us all that if Blair had been inclined to discuss his faith, it would have influenced a lot of his decisions.
Now, one would assume that if Blair's faith has been so vitally important to him over the years, he would have used Catholicism as a moral guide anyway. Yes? So why is it such a shame that he never talked about it? Why would it matter? I don't think it has anything to do with Blair's personal leadership; it's about the public knowing that He's One Of Us. And you have to admit, he'd have been a much more effective display piece than Ann Widdecombe, who incidentally also made comment about Blair's Catholicism. He'd voted against Church teachings on various issues, such as abortion, and her implication is that perhaps he isn't, or wasn't, a proper Catholic. This is my point: Blair was a pro-choice leader. The only way he could stick to this conviction in public was to keep his Catholicism quiet. Cardinal Arsehole, Ann "Celebrity Fit Club" Widdecombe and other guardians of Catholic decency would have hounded him mercilessly. How can you be Catholic and say that? How can you be Catholic and vote that way? How can you be Catholic and claim that anything is an individual's choice? (sorry, that was snide). They could quite easily hound his minister, who could quite easily start refusing communion just as Cardinal Arsehole recommends for MPs who won't do as he says. It's an easy form of blackmail.
For clarity's sake, I'm not trying to rag on the Catholics here. I don't care what people believe. What I believe, as I said in my first post, is that whatever it is should be kept firmly to themselves. I don't want to have to deal with religion becoming as intertwined with politics as it is in the US. Apart from anything else, when the religions start moving in - and chances are, as the Matthew Parris article up the page suggests, that when one starts all the rest will follow - it pushes out those of us without a man in power to speak for us. Pagans don't have it, atheists don't have it, people who believe in something but have no specified church don't have it. So when this kind of thing crops up, I will get a little mean. But it's Life of Brian all over again - it's not your religion, it's the way you're dealing with it. And I'm not having it. No way.
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