Thursday 25 February 2010

Lame Abortion Analogy Hall of Fame

After a fetus fetishizing commenter uses the old 'woman as car, fetus as passenger' abortion analogy on a post at Unrepentant Old Hippie, I commented that it was lame and that my all-time fave analogy was SUZY ALLCAPS's parrot-in-a-cage, though I confess I can't remember exactly how the pretzel-twisty logic went in that one.

JJ responded that someone should start a Hall of Fame for such thingies.

Serendipity strikes! Right now on ProgBlogs (!!!!!), there's a post titled 'Abortion' by a blogger I've never noticed before at 264MHz.

His or her kick at the abortion analogy can is a knee-slapper.
Let’s say a protester attached them self to the leg of a politician using an unbreakable chain and a lock that won’t open for nine months. The politician has two choices, walk around for the next nine months lugging the protester around on her leg or have the protester removed by cutting him open, killing him in the process. Would the politician’s right to control her body give her the right to kill the protester?

After I stopped giggling, I wondered 'why a politician?' Why not a heart surgeon? Or a fireman? Or some occupation of some actual worth to society?

So, let the games begin. What's your fave abortion analogy? For me, parrot-in-a-cage is still slightly ahead of protester-chained-to-politican. But the protester-chained-to-politician may grow on me.

(And we feminazis will be keeping an eye on 264MHz, who fits right in with the abortion-debating boyos at ProgBlogs.)

16 comments:

deBeauxOs said...

Oh look!

264MHz
An NDP supporter with thoughs of his own


"thoughs of his own"???

How ... original.

snicker, snicker

fern hill said...

Ah, 'his'. Colour me gob-smacked with surprise.

k'in said...

Wonder if his real name is "Umbert"?

LA Fields said...

I got into this one once: an unplanned pregnancy is like an accidental kidney transplant.

Let's say someone accidentally removes your kidney while you're under anesthetic and puts it into someone else. Assume you'll grown a new kidney back after nine months and be your old self again. Does your bodily autonomy trump their right to life?

Biggest problem: fetuses aren't alive without my life support system as soon as their conceived or for the bulk of the pregnancy. Also: accidentally taking my kidney vs. intentionally passing laws that say the government can requisition my kidney for the life of another. <---Such a headache.

Darwin O'Connor said...

LA Fields, I think your analogy is a good one.

I think it would be immoral to refuse to save someone's life like that, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal to refuse.

Once difference is in my analogy you have to actively kill someone verses letting them die a preventable death. Perhaps the difference is semantics, but in Canada, murdering someone is illegal but not trying to save them from falling off a building is not.

You've giving something to think about.

fern hill said...

Well, I give LAFields points for creativity. There'd be more points if kidneys actually did grow back.

But the point, Darwin O'Connor, is that there is NO good analogy to pregnancy. There is absolutely NO crazy, made-up scenario that doesn't reduce the status of the pregnant woman from a free and autonomous person to an ambulatory fetus farm.

fern hill said...

Oh, and Darwin O'Connor, why did you chose a politician for your analogy?

Darwin O'Connor said...

I chose politician because I wanted a type of person that a protester might attach themselves to. Originally I was going to say "businessperson or politician".

Having her being a politician or even a woman isn't important to the analogy. I didn't consider some people might think a politician is a worthless person.

fern hill said...

Darwin O'Connor: if you're going to hang around here, you need to recognize that we often type with tongue in cheek.

I found your choice interesting because usually people go for maximum bathos in these dealies. You know, along the lines of asking 'yeah, well, what if Albert Einstein had been aborted?'

Gristle McThornbody said...

"Let’s say a protester attached them self to the leg of a politician using an unbreakable chain and a lock that won’t open for nine months."

Mwahahahahaha! What a maroon! Would the protester start out the size of a couple of cells? Hell, I could flick that off my leg myself if the chain didn't smush it first. Idjit.

deBeauxOs said...

I think LA Fields is pro-choice; she merely presented the lame abortion analogy (exploited by MP Rod Bruinooge, here) and then exposing its stoopidity.

So by all means, Darwin, do consider how the kidney analogy is as dumb as your own, as Mrs Bitch so deftly showed us.

JJ said...

Imagine the psychological gymnastics they must go through to create these analogies.

Someone "accidentally" transplants a kidney into someone else? Holy malpractice, Batman.

Let's say... let's say...

...let's say everyone starts minding their own business and quits worrying about what other people do with their own bodies and whatever's attached to them. (FTR, I think people should be able to sell a kidney on E-bay if they want to... why not? It's theirs)

Lindsay Stewart said...

um... get the fuck out of my car. that crazy autonomy stuff works every time. though i suppose that once you get in the ALLCAPSmobile you never have to get out again.

Darwin O'Connor said...

The purpose of my analogy (and LA Fields') was to separate out the issue control of a woman's body from the issue whether or not it is okay to kill a fetus. If you believe it is okay to kill a fetus then abortion is fine and there is no reason to even raise to issue of the control of a ones body.

If you believe it wrong to kill a fetus, but because an issue of killing the fetus versus the control of ones body and things get very murky, for me at least.

k'in said...

Guess # 2--His real name is Elizabeth May?

fern hill said...

k'in: Maybe Umbert and Lizzy had a love child?

People know who Umbert is, don't they?

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