Play it Again, Whackadoos

Monday, July 5, 2010
I received this brochure the other day in one of those plastic baggies-full-o-crap that people leave on your screen door, along with coupons and other assorted detritus.

That's right - it appears the pro-life whackadoos got the "personhood" amendment back on the ballot for this fall. This isn't the first time we've seen this piece of ridiculousness - it was on the Fall 2008 ballot, as well, and was soundly defeated.

But they're at it again, using the red herring of "personhood" in order to make abortion illegal in Colorado (and elsewhere - Colorado isn't the only state targeted). They're using the oh-so-darling-it-makes-me-want-to-puke euphemism of "Snowflake Children" to supposedly prove their point. "Snowflake Children" (erp) are babies born from frozen embryos that are subsequently "adopted" and implanted, then brought to term by their "adoptive" parents. Their existence is supposed to "prove" that after conception, the bundle of cells that is a embryo is actually A PERSON. Not a bundle of cells that feels no pain until the 24th week that has the potential to become a person, given sufficient luck and optimum conditions, but an ACTUAL PERSON.

Erp. Sorry about that. I threw up in my mouth a little.

While I understand and appreciate that there's room for people of good conscience to disagree about the issue of abortion, using this kind of disingenuous claptrap as a end-run to outlaw abortion is just retarded. Not to mention the issues associated with prenatal care, miscarriage, etc. That legal knot would require the Alexandrian solution.

I was happy that Colorado voted down this incredibly sloppy piece of legislation the first time it came around. Hopefully good sense will again prevail and it'll be killed again.

6 comments:

Shawn Powers said...

Hopefully good sense will again prevail and it'll be killed again.

So you're saying the proposed amendment is alive. Interesting... :D

(And we've discussed this in length before, so while I may disagree with you on this issue, I don't feel lumped into the whackadoo camp.)

Shawn Powers said...

Also to note -- contrived arguments to "prove the point" do annoy me. I think the pro-life group does little to convince anyone, and rather just bolsters their own emotions on the issue. Sigh.

Eric said...

Wow... just... wow.

Dear Amendment 62 folks: little girls wear clothes, play with toys and (if they're old enough) go to school. XX-chromosome zygotes just kind of float around a bit until implantation or discharge. As for the status of whatever might possibly come in between "zygote" and "little girl," that's obviously a matter of some disagreement, isn't it?

Eric said...

Let me also just add (sort of for Shawn's benefit): it's possible that if there are souls, zygotes have them. I'm skeptical as to both counts, but it's an argument that somebody can make. (Prove is a different matter, but let's let that pass for the sake of the point.)

The point being that it's one thing to say "personhood begins at conception because the nugget of cells that's created has the special qualities of personhood" and another thing to say a blob of cells is "a little girl." The first claim (which I suspect is the one Shawn would make, though I don't want to put words in his mouth) is one I can respect albeit pretty profoundly disagree with. The second claim, made by the pamphlet, is laughable (and it sounds like Shawn might have problems with it, too; though, again, I don't want to put words in his mouth).

Shawn Powers said...

Eric -- not sure if you followed one of the threads at the "E" that first gathered part of the UCF together, but it was the most civil discussion on abortion I've ever had:

http://whateveresque.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=266

Tom said...

I agree with Shawn. That thread was pretty amazing, and probably marked the beginning of my respect for the people who became UCFers.

I also think the UCF in general is pretty solidly in the "Shawn Powers is not a wackadoo" camp! :)