Having explained the stupidity of the South Dakota state legislature, it looks like it’s time for a short history and explanation of abortion (and “abortionists”) in my benighted home state.
In the town where I grew up, if you were Catholic, you attended mass at the only church in town that had a picture of a fetus prominently displayed out front, accompanied by altar society ladies wearing little silver pins in the form of fetus feet, and given by a priest who made the evil of abortion the subject of his homily at least once a month. And if you wanted to have an abortion, you had to drive 200 miles to Rapid City, passing dozens of “Abortion Kills a Beating Heart” signs and pictures of tiny fetuses hand-painted on billboards sponsored by Catholic churches along the way.
Once you got there, you’d be treated by Ben Munson, who was the only physician in the state performing abortions for a couple of decades. Ben’s work began long before Roe v Wade, and he was being prosecuted for doing so at the time the Roe decision came down. He was considered competent, though he was tried for manslaughter (and acquitted) after one of his patients died post-abortion. He retired in the mid-80’s.
After Ben retired, another older gynecologist, Buck Williams, took over in Sioux Falls. Buck persevered through endless protests, usually sparked by Catholics (including the bishop), and he was constantly threatened, which led him to increase the caliber of the handgun he carried. He joined forces with Planned Parenthood in the 90’s, and ended his career in their fortress/clinic there.
Buck retired sometime in the late 90’s. Since then, Planned Parenthood has been flying in doctors from Minneapolis to work in their Sioux Falls bunker. Unlike Williams and Munson, who delivered babies and saved women’s lives as part of their regular practices, these “abortionists” have no connection to the community. For better or worse, Munson and Williams were household names, and it just wouldn’t have been decent for the legislature contemplating an open season on the men who delivered their kids and grandkids.
Now that these “abortionists” are flown in from out of state, it’s really not that surprising that the legislature is contemplating declaring open season on them. It’s just another step in the campaign of constant harassment that’s been going on for decades, orchestrated in large part by the Catholic Church. Though, to their credit, I have to acknowledge that they are still “monitoring” the murder of abortionists act. Apparently it takes a while for these christians to decide whether they’ll support amnesty for anyone who guns down an abortionist in front of the clinic where they support year-round constant protest.
matoko_chan
b-b-b-but…….FETUS=SLAVE dooncha kno?
Zifnab
At a certain point, I don’t understand the merit of fighting to continue the practice. If the community hates you that much, it really is time to just pull up and leave.
If Sioux Falls wants an abortion provider, then the city shouldn’t be allowing this kind of ongoing harassment. I understand that, at this point, it’s like providing aid to some third world country. But even the Red Cross knows that when the locals start brandishing AK-47s, it’s time to pick up and aim your efforts at a different location.
matoko_chan
ban meh you dumbass cudlip.
that is the only way ima gonna shut up.
i dont respect you……YOU STUPID.
mistermix
@Zifnab: The community does want it. In 2006, the state’s voters voted 55-45 to overturn the legislature’s bill outlawing abortion. It’s a minority of very noisy, highly Catholic protesters who are trying to thwart the law of the land and the will of the people.
geg6
Well, this will certainly give the vapors to all the Catholic Church apologists, but seriously…
FUCK THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND FUCK THEM HARD. The Church is a misogynistic, pedophilic criminal conspiracy and, as such, should be shunned, it’s leaders jailed, and it’s enablers mocked.
As someone said here the other day (a paraphrase), if I had a time machine and could go back and whisper in Joseph’s ear while handing him a rock, saying “You don’t believe that story, do you?”, I would. Of course, I’d do the same (in context) for all the other religions’ origin stories, too. Christianity and Islam are just the worst of a bad bunch.
stuckinred
@matoko_chan: nutty buddy!
Tom
Is this the same “mastermix” of Savage Love fame?
adolphus
I was wondering a couple of things about this law. Could I kidnap an abortionist and take him to South Dakota to kill? Would South Dakota extradite me?
If a president or other political leader is planning on invading a country, could you legally assassinate him/her in South Dakota. I mean, since any invasion would involve a certain number of civilian deaths and pregnant women make up a certain number of all populations and any fatalities in the gen pop will ultimately result in a fairly predictable number of dead fetuses, halting that invasion would avert a statistically knowable number of abortions similar to the “man beats pregnant woman so killing him is justifiable to protect the fetus” example given by the SD legislator.
I’m just speculating because it would be irresponsible not to.
Bulworth
I enjoyed Labor Day weekend in Rapid City, visiting Pine Ridge, Mt. Rushmore and Deadwood. Seems like such a nice state, not nearly as crazy as these crazies are making it appear.
matoko_chan
How does mistermix have any credibility here?
He supports EDK, and links him, and links that evil nest of glibertatian fucktards at LoOG.
EDK has never retracted his support for the foul FETUS=SLAVE eumeme.
Therefore mistermix supports the FETUS=SLAVE eumene by supporting EDK.
It is rather hypocritical of him to protest against the catholics.
its in their religion, just like FETUS=SLAVE is in EDKs.
mistermix
@Tom: Yes.
matoko_chan
@stuckinred: that was for YOU, you dimwitted guntoting missionary bankstah-cannonfodder you.
:)
MikeJ
@adolphus: Kidnapping is a federal crime. Crossing a state line in the commission of a felony automatically brings in the feds. Killing a federal official is a federal crime.
So unless SoDak wants to go all Ft Sumter, the feds would get you.
DougJ®
Great post, it is great to hear these details.
beltane
The dream scenario for these fanatics would be to have a woman who is about to have an abortion get shot by her husband leaving her comatose but not dead. A pregnant Terry Schivo would cause some kind of mass orgasm among these ghouls. Such justice, such purity.
Zifnab
@matoko_chan: Dude. Please drop the one-commenter jihad against EDK. This is just getting obnoxious and silly.
arguingwithsignposts
@matoko_chan: mistermix has way more credibility than your fatuous cudlipology, fuckstick.
gnomedad
If secondhand smoke can harm fetuses, could you shoot smokers? How about polluters? Bartenders?
geg6
@beltane:
You just know they’d nickname her “Mary.”
matoko_chan
@arguingwithsignposts: why? what i said was true.
EDK supports the FETUS=SLAVE calumney– he has never retacted it.
mistermix supports EDK. Both statements are true.
therefore, logically mistermix supports FETUS=SLAVE.
he is no different than the catholics he is sneering at.
@Zifnab: Cole can give him the hook or ban me. idc which.
RosiesDad
@mistermix: If the people of Sioux Falls/South Dakota do want it, then they need to shut the protesters down and provide a safe environment for the doctors who provide abortion services to work. If they are going to be cowed by a small, but vocal (and possibly violent) minority, the good people of Sioux Falls/South Dakota deserve what they get.
adolphus
@MikeJ:
I watch way too much Law and Order not to have known that. I blame the early hour.
Could someone kill an out-of-state Dr. if they were just passing through?
john b
their use of kids next to these ghastly fetus photos is always one of the most disgusting tactics.
matoko_chan
@DougJ®: youz trollin’ amirite? how can this be a great post when mistermix supports the FETUS=SLAVE eumeme?
isnt it just a tad hypocritical?
those poor catholics just want to emancipate the fetii.
toujoursdan
@matoko_chan:
Lay off the ludes, dude. You’re starting to sound like Glenn Beck.
stuckinred
@matoko_chan: hell yes!!!
beltane
@gnomedad: Now we have a dilemma. Conservatives don’t like to be told to eat healthy and take their vitamins. They feel it is their most sacred right to be able to eat sticks of margarine deep-fried in hydrogenated fats every day. Would pregnant women have this right, or are they like bitches in a puppy mill, condemned to breed eternally with no rights at all?
superluminar
@matoko_chan: 9.40am?
Shouldn’t you be at school?
jwb
@matoko_chan: Hey, cudlip, did you know that you think just like a wingnut with the valences reversed?
matoko_chan
@superluminar: im MST.
@beltane: Dr. Manzi and I usta argue this allatime at TAS. what we are seeing now, and what we saw in the midterms, is a kind of distributed jesusland, where you get a localized mob rule.
matoko_chan
@jwb: no i dont. because im an empiricist.
mistermix a.k.a. mastermix
@RosiesDad: I think the protests are generally peaceful, and they do arrest protesters when they get out of hand. The last bishop of the SF diocese, for example, was arrested. Everyone has the right to peacefully wave fetus pictures, it’s in the constitution somewhere.
MikeJ
@adolphus: I’d still bet that the feds would call it a civil rights offense resulting in death, therefore a capital federal crime.
Also, murder related to interstate commerce.
Murder involved in racketeering is possible. Didn’t they use RICO on some anti choice groups?
Heck, §1111 makes plain old murder a federal felony, so anything the locals didn’t prosecute, the feds could.
jwb
@matoko_chan: An empiricist in the same way that wingnuts are empiricists, with the same cavalier approach to data that doesn’t match your hypothesis.
niknik
@matoko_chan:
Ummm, not that I really care, but your argument reminds me of the one that goes a little like: “I don’t like broccoli. I also don’t like Hitler. Clearly, Hitler and broccoli are the same.”
Just sayin’
matoko_chan
@toujoursdan: hardly. my observations are based on empirical data. EDK supports FETUS=SLAVE. mistermiz supports EDK.
therefore, logically, mistermix supports FETUS=SLAVE.
its a syllogism.
;)
geg6
@matoko_chan:
You know, no one detests the crap storm that describe most EDK posts (especially his garbage about fetus = slave) more than I do. Not even you. But you are out of line in tying mistermix to EDK’s opinions in a big way. And, if you detest EDK as you say you do, why do you read his posts or provide the vehicle for more dissemination of his crappy ideas by going on and on and on and on and on about them? I ignore him and his ideas completely. Which is what anyone with a brain would and should do.
jwb
@MikeJ: Depends on who is in charge of DoJ, no?
matoko_chan
@niknik: see above. ^^
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: Like your use of ‘the fetii’.
matoko_chan
@geg6: i dont read EDK. i dropped a safe on him, but i pried it up to see how he reacted to being trolled by DougJ the Master Troll on creationism and AGW denialism.
it was hilarious.
but i put the safe back.
mistermix regularily defends EDK, links him and the LoOGies, and never calls EDK out on his lies, spin and anti-empirical glibertarian bullshytt.
empirically one must assume mistermix supports EDK and shares some of his ideology.
QED
Kryptik
@mistermix a.k.a. mastermix:
Unfortunately, in concert with such protests tends to be the kind of harassment that is, or at least was, the hallmark of Operation Rescue: intimidation tactics against known neighbors or establishments where clinic workers were patrons, to essentially ostracize, alienate, and generally turn communities against the workers. It’s akin to racketeering, and is usually never far behind the protests. Even the protests get crazy when they literally picket clinic workers yards, complete with giant trucks bearing fetus pictures.
Shane in Utah
So shut down the local Catholic Church: find some of the former boys that the local priests molested, and help them sue, sue, sue until the fuckers file for bankruptcy:
http://www.economist.com/node/18114701?story_id=18114701
matoko_chan
@Paul in KY: indeed. how can anyone take mistermixs criticism of catholics protesting abortion seriously when he enables and supports EDK’s “right” to spread the FETUS=SLAVE eumeme?
it is illogical.
geg6
Meanwhile, we can all just see once again how pro-family the GOPers and Teabaggers are by their leaders:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_02/028022.php
Joey Maloney
@geg6: FUCK THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND FUCK THEM HARD.
FUCK THEM LIKE A CHOIRBOY.
Morbo
@matoko_chan: “Supports” is not an adequately descriptive term to actually make a valid syllogism.
geg6
@Joey Maloney:
Funny but immeasurably sad at the same time, isn’t it?
niknik
@matoko_chan:
Yes, thanks. Syllogistic fallacy. That was the word for “crappy argument” I was looking for.
Ash Can
What gasses me about the protesters, Catholic and otherwise, is that they’re not even doing their own expressed cause any good. If you’re looking to eliminate abortion, you’re way the hell behind the curve if you’re doing it at a clinic where abortions are performed. The pregnancy has already been done, the decision has already been made, and you’re just way too late. Where were you when the pregnancy could have been prevented in the first place? Where were you on the issues that made the woman feel as though she needed to get the abortion?
And this isn’t even considering the fact that anti-abortion people need to grow the hell up and face the fact that there are people in this world who don’t believe abortion is evil, or that they’re sinning by getting one, or that it’s dooming society, etc., etc.
Yet more evidence that anti-abortion activists aren’t really anti-abortion per se, they’re just into harassing women.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: I never read EDK’s ‘post of fetus doom’ as I generally do not read his posts.
I can see it’s struck a vibe with you. Could you send me a link to the place where he equates fetii with slavery?
Also, how about ‘democracy’ flowering in Libya, Baharain, etc.? I’m sure you have something to say about that :-)
Also, cudlip.
Joey Maloney
@geg6: It’s more or less the only mode of discourse I can manage these days. It’s either that, or alternating between inconsolable sobbing and maniacal laughter.
Persia
@geg6: So you’d stop violence women by…encouraging violence against women? Nice.
If the Catholic church hadn’t done it, someone else would’ve codified all the misogyny into law. I agree with the ‘fuck the church’ sentiment, but let’s not pretend Western Civilization would’ve been a paradise for women without their presence.
geg6
@Persia:
The lie that particular woman told has created two thousand years of misery, death, and hate. Yes, I’d kill Mary in a second if it would avoid the Catholic Church and Christianity in general. Yes.
Rick Taylor
I don’t know why you’re talking about this, when the real threat to our freedom comes from our tyrannical First Lady who is even now encouraging us to eat healthy foods and exercise, and our government who is allowing deductions for breastfeeding equipment.
Zifnab
@matoko_chan:
Wasn’t Samora Morgan the psychotic ghost spirit girl that murdered people purely for the sick thrill in that movie? Not what I would call a roll model.
LindaH
@geg6: Considering how many of the gospels weren’t written by Mary (ZERO) and that all were written by “true believers”, and that the council of Nicea CHOSE which gospels were Gospel, there is no real evidence that Mary made any claims about being impregnated by God. It sounds to me like the type of typical puffery that publicists put up. It’s like the birthers claims about Obama. There is no real support for them, Obaman denies it, his mother denied it and yet it goes on. I realize that blaming the woman is a grand tradition in the world, but that attitude is the same one that tries to make rape only rape when the woman can prove bruises and supports the idea that women are unequal creatures who lie. It really is part of the problem.
Sue
I have decided to change my designation. I am not going to call myself pro-choice anymore. I am anti-backstreet-abortion.
Might as well acknowledge the ultimate result of these efforts and run with it.
Paul in KY
@LindaH: I’ve always thought it was her ‘dog ate my homework’ excuse for when she turned up preggers prior to any lovin with Joesph.
Would like to have been there to see how she sold it (the excuse, that is).
matoko_chan
@Paul in KY: not my job. educate yourbigself.
cudlip.
heres a clue to aid your lack of search fu.
the trail of outrage starts at the daily dish.
@niknik: well if mistermix supports EDKs “right” to assert the FETUS=SLAVE position, why doesnt he embrace the catholics “right” to assert the ABORTION IS MURDER position?
i dont see a fallacy.
my observation seems logically coherent.
matoko_chan
@Zifnab: no…. she killed for revenge.
dont we all?
Dr. Squid
@matoko_chan: If Cole banninates you, it’s because he found a bag of hammers that can make a better argument.
Also, cudlip.
matoko_chan
@Paul in KY: the other thing i totally dont understand is original sin. i mean, that is documented as being tacked on in the war against the gnostics.
how can anyone believe that crap?
matoko_chan
@Dr. Squid: bring it then. no one here refutes me.
they just adhom or have a meltdown like el Campeador (el Cid)
you cows cant refute me……im RIGHT.
Sasha
Among the number of things that disappoints me about the current US Catholic Church, one of the most disheartening is its focus on abortion to the exclusion of almost virtually every other social issue.
The Other Chuck
@Sasha:
That’s not fair to the Catholic Church. In addition they’ve also been instrumental in helping spread AIDs by condemning the use of condoms.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: I have ‘search fu’, I just try the Jedi mind trick of having other worthies do my work for me.
Note to self: The force is strong in this one ;-)
Ash Can
@geg6: It’s one thing to be anti-religion, but this is just messed up. You went through a dreadful experience, and it understandably did a number on you. For your own sake, you should find someone who can help you work through it.
Paul in KY
@matoko_chan: As far as I can tell, the ‘Paulists’ were thinking the Gnostics were having too much fun & came up with the original sin stuff to try & shame all Christians into having to submit to the will of Peter (i.e. the Catholic Church & its hierarchy).
I was raised Methodist, so I’m not up to speed on stuff that occured in the 500s. Ask me about John Wesley!
Chris
Why stop at legalizing the shooting of abortion doctors? Why not legalize the shooting of pedophile priests?
I mean, isn’t abortion less illegal than molesting little boys?
(/acid sarcasm)
brendancalling
Here are the provisions of South Duh-kota’s Safe Haven Law:
It is not a crime for a parent to deliver a child to an emergency medical services provider or a licensed child-placing agency if the child has not been harmed prior to being left with the emergency medical services provider or a licensed child-placing agency.
The parent leaving the child is not required to provide any information, including the name of the parents.
The department or licensed child-placing agency may not attempt to identify, contact, or investigate the parent who voluntarily delivered the child to an emergency medical services provider or a licensed child-placing agency unless it appears the child has been harmed.
If a parent of a child relinquishes custody of the child to an emergency medical services provider or a licensed child-placing agency, then, after 14 days, by operation of law:
* All of that parent’s rights with respect to the child are terminated.
* The child becomes a ward of the State or licensed child-placing agency.
*
Questions concerning child’s medical history: No parental obligation to provide information.
So if the South Duh-kotans get what they want, expect a dramatic rise in abandoned children, coupled with tax hikes to pay for their care and feeding. Outcomes for kids like this are typically bad, so one may anticipate more costs borne by taxpayers to deal with unemployment, welfare, food stamps, incarceration costs, health care, homelessness, drug/alcohol addiction.
shortstop
@geg6: You’re giving a lot of credence to the story as told by the boys who wrote the Bible. Dude, some healthy skepticism, please.
Or, now that I look at it, what LindaH said.
JMS
Somehow this topic reminds me of vaccines. You’ve got a situation that is not 100% ideal, and so somehow getting rid of it will be better, and not say, lead back to a situation that was a whole lot worse, that nobody seems to remember. Outlawing abortions won’t make them go away. Instead you’ll have a lot more of this going on.
At the same time, since it’s the women of places like South Dakota that will be most affected (not the women of Minnesota, say)it’s also in large part the responsibility of the people of South Dakota to address this nonsense.
geg6
@LindaH:
I’d happily kill them all, the men and women who started every single religion in the whole world. I make no distinctions among gender or sect. Religion is the biggest crap sandwich on earth and the less we have of it to make stupid people more stupid, racist people more racist, sexist people more sexist, the better. If the Jesus story said Jesus was magically born from Joseph’s pen!s, then it would be to Mary that I’d be whispering and handing the rock.
niknik
@matoko_chan:
Okay, whatever.
Your mouse has a scroll thingy, yes?
Also, cudlip.