I Had an Abortion, Therefore Totalitarian State Rule!
"I had an abortion, therefore Totalitarian State Rule for the lot of you!" type narratives puzzle me.
Take the latest offering, from Rep. Michele Bachmann. While answering a question on her position on abortion at a town hall meeting she tells the story of a past unplanned pregnancy that ended in a spontaneous abortion:
“It was an unexpected baby, but of course we were delighted to have this child. The child was coming along and we ended up losing our child. And it was devastating to both of us, as you can imagine if any of you have lost a child.”
She told the rapt audience of 400 South Carolina voters that the experience changed her and eventually led her to raise 23 foster children along their five biological children.
“At that moment, we didn’t think of ourselves as overly career-minded or overly materialistic but when we lost that child, it changed us, and it changed us forever,” she said.
Bachmann is clearly able to recognize that a private, personal matter -- how she and her husband felt about an unplanned pregnancy and its outcome -- shaped her view on abortion. And her as you can imagine if any of you have lost a child clearly shows she is aware that other people, just like her, also have personal experiences when it comes to pregnancy matters.
So far, so good. What puzzles me is the next step.
How do you go from "Based on my personal experience I would not choose to have an abortion." to "We must use the State's power to force the choice I made based on my personal experience on perfect strangers."?
I really wish a reporter would bother to ask Rep. Bachmann to explain her thought process.
And just for comic relief, next time Rep. Bachmann says she is 100 percent pro-life from conception until natural death, she should be asked at what point exactly during "conception" does her position kick in (fertilization is a complex sequence of events that takes about 24 hrs after sperm penetrates the oocyte, and results in a bunch of totipotent cells).
Labels: Abortion, Rep. Michele Bachmann
posted by ema @ 8:25 AM
4 comments
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She didn't _raise_ 23 foster children; she housed them temporarily.
Basically she is a full of baloney moron.
Just skimming over your blog. Seriously, maybe she'll explain when life begins, when you explain at what point the genetic material gets added for each developmental stage.....like the heart for instance.....when do the cells get added after conception to make a human heart?
Anon @ 11:33 PM,
I'm unclear on what you're asking. Genetic material isn't added for developmental stages.
What I am asking is really twofold At what point in the "complex" part of fertilization/conception are the cells 'living', and at what gestational age does the product of conception/fertilization become a human? Is something added after conception/fertilization that suddenly classifies this product as a human being? And if it was not a human being before this moment, what was it? Is something added after conception/fertilization that makes it living where heretofore it was not, i.e. it was dead? If it is just a clump of cells, what kind of cells? Epithelial cells? Myocardial cells? Is genetic code added at different gestational stages, or is it all present at conception? It would be reasonable to conclude that the statement "life begins at conception" is scientifically accurate, don't you agree?
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