Through the Looking Glass
May 29th, 2005 at 10:23 pm by Susie
From Martini Republic, this exchange between Flounder and a reporter:
Q And my question is . . . . is the President also opposed to contraception, which stops this union and kills both sperm and egg?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think the President has made his views known on these issues, and his views known —
Q You know, but what I asked, is he opposed — he’s not opposed to contraception, is he?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, and you’ve made your views known, as well. The President —
Q No, no, but is he opposed to contraception, Scott? Could you just tell us yes or no?
MR. McCLELLAN: Les, I think that this question is —
Q Well, is he? Does he oppose contraception?
MR. McCLELLAN: Les, I think the President’s views are very clear when it comes to building a culture of life —
Q If they were clear, I wouldn’t have asked.
MR. McCLELLAN: — and if you want to ask those questions, that’s fine. I’m just not going to dignify them with a response.
The “reporter” who asked the question is Les Kinsolving, conservative Baltimore talk show host with a history of odd questions. He usually plays a Jeff Gannon-like game, but he’s willing to bash Bush when he’s not conservative enough. More on him here.
This is an inportant question, because some birth control methods (pill, iud, patch, “morning after” (same as pill)) work (at least in part) by preventing implantation, so that any fertilized eggs are flushed from the woman’s body.
Because of it’s rarity, anti-abortion activists have been successful because politically it can be cast as a black and white issue (and of course it is not). But if a fertilized egg legally has the same right as a human, then many methods of birth control will be illegal.
So for all of those Sunday moralists that tsk-tsk about all those poor women and girls that have abortions, try taking away their birth control pills and watch the hypocracy spew forth.
Well, we already know that they’re spewing forth that condoms don’t work. And they don’t like IUDs and morning-after pills because they kill the poor little blastocytes. So now we’re beginning to get the first little implications that birth control pills are not quite okay.
Do we detect a pattern here?
For those politicos interested in some kind of compromise “pro-life democrat” type position in the hope of appeasing the centrist right wing voters, please note that these folks will not stop at banning abortion. Once they have a victory on that position, birth control will be the next one. Then no-fault divorce. They will never be satisfied.
This logic chopping by the fundies has got to stop. If carried to its logical conclusions it becomes as absurd as counting the number of angels that can dance on a pin. Basically, they know nothing about biology and presume that what usually happens must always happen. If their silly rules are applied to marginal cases they become ridiculous.
One question I’d really like to see asked is predicated on the principle these guys present that a zygote is a person because it has a normal set of chromosomes and is capable of developing into a real human and therefore has a soul.
If one set of chromosomes causes one soul, then does a chimera* have two souls? If so, how does that affect criminal justice? For example, should both souls be punished if only one of them is controlling the body during the crime?
Can hermaphroditic chimeras ever be truely homosexual? If so, which sould goes to hell?
( *human chimeras are the result of the fusion of two zygotes in utero, sort of like the opposite of identical twins
http://www.unc.edu/courses/2002fall/biol/122/001/Human%20genetics%20Dual%20identities_files/DynaPage(1).htm
)