Posted on 02/15/2002 10:23:06 PM PST by churchillbuff
FreeRepugnant.com
By Debby Morse Of The Examiner Staff
AFTER MY COLUMN last Friday about President Bush's decision to classify fetuses as children, I received a spate of angry mail. One kind soul e-mailed me an alert that the column had been posted on FreeRepublic.com, "The Premier Conservative News Forum," and predicted that I'd be getting "an onslaught of hate mail from rabid right-wing freaks."
(Quick glimpse at some of the messages I got: "Is that the way you spend all your time? Hating people?" "Would you look down from Heaven and defend your mother if she had aborted you?" "Your panic and fear is obvious by the way you write.")
So I thought I ought to pay a visit to the Web site. On the FreeRepublic home page, I was welcomed thus: "We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America. And we always have fun doing it. Hoo-yah!" No objections there from me. Freedom of speech; gotta love it. And who's in favor of political fraud and corruption? Not I. Still ... I don't know why, but that "Hoo-yah!" unsettled me. (Maybe because it's like "yahoo" backwards?)
Anyway, the site is a collection of forums and postings on various umbrella topics such as foreign affairs, activism and philosophy, with links to sites like the Cato Institute (a libertarian forum on public policy), the Drudge Report, the Heritage Foundation (a conservative think tank), the Rush Limbaugh show and the Linda Tripp Defense Fund (with a post-make-over photo -- hey, why not?).
And here's the best part: It's a great opportunity to "eavesdrop" on the conversations of people who chat there, seemingly secure in the belief that they are among friends and can say whatever they want. They can! First Amendment! But, boy, a lot of what they said there about my column is even nastier than what they e-mailed to me. * * *
LET'S LISTEN IN. Breakem writes: "Come out with your legs up and let the baby go and nobody gets hurt." Clintonh8r says: "Debby's a little crampy today, huh?" MissAmericanPie wishes me this fortune: "May her uterus be as barren as her soul. I pity the unlucky man that finds his way there, or the baby that tries to find warmth, love, or life in that cold, void, steel locker she calls her uterus."
Some of the postings were so bizarre that saner heads felt obliged to butt in and warn them to cool it. Following a useless exchange of comments that fetuses are "respiring" beings, Hank Kerchief pleads: "These continued ignorant arguments are playing right into the hands of the pro-choice movement. Please think before helping to increase the number of abortions being performed every day."
One of the shoddier bits of logic came in an e-mail: "You hate President Bush because he is a conservative and a Republican. I despise you because you are a traitor to this country. You tear down a president during wartime with false charges. You may be a citizen of this country, but you are not an American. You are also a pretty lousy feminist; you promote an outdated, divisive political agenda that does not serve women. You want to deal in reality? Here is the scoop. Most of my friends and I have concluded that being home is a fabulous choice. We choose our families. You liberals choose an outdated, dangerous political agenda which certainly contributed to the 9-11 horror. Liberals elected President Clinton who 'fiddled' while bin Laden plotted. You mock the victims of 9-11 with your despicable column."
Honey, I'm going to have to revoke your license to argue.
I also received an e-mail with a photo of a very mature fetus' arm protruding through -- what? -- a hole in a pregnant belly? A bloody image meant to shock. Turns out the same photo is posted on the FreeRepublic thread about my column, but the contributor, calling himself Revelation 911, confides that it's actually a picture of in-utero surgery and that the gestation went full-term. * * *
THESE PEOPLE SEEM to hate women. Even MissAmericanPie says, "No doubt her kind are very odd, the Jane Fonda militant female type. I've always kind of pictured Eve as being like that, more feline than female, resentful and rebellious against everything she was meant to be, finding no satisfaction in anything else either."
There are a couple of ugly remarks regarding anatomy and even rape, and a bunch of digs at San Francisco. A few people suggested it was time for another earthquake here. It was supposed to be funny, but it amounts to a wish for my death. There's a lot of that among pro-lifers, I guess. Someone suggested advocates for choice should commit suicide!
After reading "arguments" like that, I'm more dedicated than ever to wanting to keep my body private.
E-mail Debby Morse at dmorse@sfexaminer.com
Read the postings at : www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/624590/posts
search engines aren't helpful because how many people would name their article 'Long in-depth conservative article'?
If this really bothers her, shes so far out of touch with reality, there is absolutely no hope of pulling her back.
Radical leftists are nuts. We won't go along with their agenda: homosexuality, abortion and big government are wrong...period.
She is probably ignorant of it's meaning. She's a newpaper columnist, after all, and doesn't need to know what she's writing about.
"Its tissue"
"Human tissue?"
they hated those questions and probably still do
The phenomenon of twinning would allow for a reasonable counter-argument; how can it be said that a zygote is "a" human being when it might turn out to be two, three, or four (I think there have been identical quads, though I'm not sure)? If an embryo splits into two identical pieces, it doesn't seem right to say one of them was created when they split and the other was created at fertilization, but at the same time it's not reasonable to say that they were both created at fertilization when, had events following fertilization gone differently, there would never have have been a split and thus there would never have been more than one person.
I don't think there can be any doubt that the embryo/fetus becomes a full-fledged person many months prior to birth. That does not, however, mean that personhood goes all the way back to fertilization; there are other developmental milestones such as implantation which are just as clearly defined, and by which time the nature of the devloping blatocyst/embryo is much more clearly defined. While fertilization doesn't establish how many people there are going to be, I think that question is pretty well decided by the the time of implantation.
IMHO, just as building a house requires three ingredients (completed plans, construction materials, and job site) I would say that producing a human likewise requires sperm, egg, and development site (natural or simulated uterine lining; the latter having never been successfully used yet, but leaving myself open to the possibility).
This has been a constant refrain over the past few decades. A few wackos were morally blind enough to act out violently against abortionists, and the pro-abortion lobby and its acolytes in the media have used the twisted acts of those sick individuals to argue that pro-lifers are killers. They do so because they need to distract the public's attention from the brutal extermination of MILLIONS of real human beings already existing in the world --- here in concrete form and as completely human as you and I.
It has been a breathtaking and magnificent piece of sophistry to witness, undoubtedly without parallel in the history of the world.
Not true. One would hope that people who lurk here would come around and think, "Gosh, what a suprise! A place full of people who think well and talk about important political issues...maybe I can learn from/contribute something to this!" Instead, when they read things like suggesting people should commit suicide and wishing people would die, they probably think this is just another whackjob internet site, and go back to the warm glow of the television.
For our San Francisco vegetable buddies ...
For our San Francisco vegetable buddies ...
I think it's important that liberals be encouraged to engage in debates (in civilized fashion of course). After all, the goal is to win over fence-sitting liberals, and that's far more likely to happen if FR has a welcoming atmosphere than if it becomes a conservative self-aggrandizing society.
About a decade ago, I was in a bowling alley when an episode of Donahue came on which featured Rush Limbaugh as a guest speaker. I was a liberal at the time, and while I had not previously watched Donahue, I thought it would be interesting to see Rush in front of a hostile crowd. I was right.
Rush's performance there was far better than anything I'd ever seen the few times I caught his show. On his own show, Rush would be inclined to make unsupported statements which conservatives would accept is true but liberals would not. While that may be fine if his goal were to preach to the choir, it's not a good way of winning converts. On the Donahue program, however, the liberals were inclined to challenge almost everything he said; since Rush proceeded to back up the challenged statements, however, the program was probably far more effective at winning over those who would have disbelieved Rush's statements had he not done so.
Now, when Asians seek ultrasounds to determine the gender of the fetus and selectively abort the females fetuses.....
Is that considered "Politically Incorrect" by Debbie or not?
On the one hand, they are merely "fetuses". On the other hand, they are Pre-Women.
I guess it all depends on semantics.
Debbie, once upon a time in her ontogeny, was a zygote and then a fetus. Now, she is a Woman.
In America, as a 7 month gestation pre-mature infant, Debbie would have a right to life protected by law. If her "mother's psychological health was endangered" Debbie could be legally killed in the third trimester in a partial birth abortion even if she were older than 7 months gestation.
The "Adolfs" of the 1940's used the terms "Untermenchen" and "Juden" to describe humans who could be killed. The "Debbies" of today use the term "fetus".
It's all semantics. Once you give it a name other than "human", you can kill it and still be "Politically Correct".
I am not a religious individual and I consider myself to be Agnostic. I am just going by Common Sense. If there is a Christian God, on Judgement Day, the Debbies of this world are going to be in deep Kim Chee just as Adolph was.
Very clearly, amigo.
And doesn't that spin fit well with Debby Morse and the rest of the liberal Me First generation? Here, it's 'my' uterus, 'your' fetus. And she can't conceal her delight at being the 'victim', of 'rabid right-wingers.' Should she fall pregnant it's 'my baby!' And needless to say, should she lose the baby, that's good for three columns of sympathy seeking. For the Debbys, the world revolves around them, and anyone disputing her twisted worldview (like those opposed to abortion) must have a problem.
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