Just in case you weren’t aware that reproductive rights and bodily autonomy for women hinges on a male and what he does or doesn’t do with his penis, here’s Texas Republican Congressman Michael Burgess — a former OB/GYN, no less — citing masturbating fetuses as a reason to outlaw virtually all abortions after 20 weeks.
Via Addie Stan at RH Reality Check:
“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” said Burgess, a former OB/GYN. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”
Just when you thought you’ve heard it all, some dude bro starts talking about male fetuses jerking off, and then your brain starts to cry.
Setting aside that fetuses don’t wank (and that major medical bodies in the U.S. and U.K. have refuted the claim that fetuses feel pain before the third trimester), I find it very interesting that the concern is only for male fetus pleasure. Because women are just brood mares who can’t feel pleasure. Where’s the love for female fetuses? Damn.
Have fun with this one, Juicers.
[via RH Reality Check]
Betty Cracker
“I fap, therefore I am”? Sounds like a plausible slogan for today’s GOP wankers. Jesus God. Where is that meteor already?
Emma
I read that last night, went into “what the… even…” mode, shut down the laptop and went to read an actual book with actual information in it. I needed a non-damaging form of brain bleach.
Just One More Canuck
What
The
Fuck?
Aji
@Betty Cracker: Well, duh. For today’s GOP wankers, it’s pure existentialism.
You can draw a direct line from fapping in utero to “every sperm is sacred,” doncha know.
Amir Khalid
I don’t remember whether I did, or did not, masturbate while in my mother’s womb. But I think not. Had I known about choking the chicken as early as that, I wouldn’t have waited as (relatively) long* as I did to start doing it out of the womb.
*How long did I wait? Nunya bidness.
Joey Maloney
If there was internet in the womb, I could believe this.
shortstop
Speechless. Unusually.
Todd
Doesn’t matter. Obama is history’s greatest monster for betraying progressives, an democrats his willing accomplices in that betrayal, so they must be electorally punished to reach them a lesson. President in Waiting Saint Doctor Jill Kucinich Stein is ready to answer the call!
nemesis
Next up for the gop: ovulating women who fail to become impregnated will be jailed. Its what jeebus would want.
jon
Republican men: still unable to acknowledge, or even locate, the clitoris.
jon
@nemesis: Jail isn’t the correct term for the… facility they have in mind. And only the white women will attend. For the Homeland!
maya
If only they could get a hold of a tiny AR-15…. Hey!.I smell a lucrative Texas kickstarter.
Forum Transmitted Disease
The “clitoris” is a mysterious organ; unmentioned by the only source of human knowledge, the Holy Bible, it is widely believed by reputable Biblical scholars not to exist. Biblical scientists are of the opinion that the mythical “clitoris” is nothing more that an invention of the liberal media, made up in order to draw women and weak-willed men into the Satanic embrace of women’s rights and communism.
jon
@nemesis: The Homeland! (Warning: link to something many fans of the first one insist DOES NOT EXIST.)
Gin & Tonic
Well, obviously the male fetuses get *more* pleasure because they are still uncircumcised.
/ducks and runs
Tonybrown74
Oh, gawd!
I’ve not had any coffee yet this morning. I am not ready for this shit …
MomSense
Another day another Republican WTF.
Suzanne
Is this not the creepiest thing EVAR?
Like, YUCK.
balconesfault
How is it that so many doctors seem to be absolute idiots on points of science?
scav
So moving one’s hand near the crotch area is a clear sign of the attainment of maximal masculion functioning.
Scott S.
The freak is my Congressman. And he always seemed fairly sensible before, at least as far as Republicans went. Must’ve overdosed on the tea-flavored LSD.
Do girl fetuses masturbate? Do we need to get them itty-bitty fetus vibrators? Or does that just prove they’re abortable fetus sluts?
If they’re masturbating inside the womb, doesn’t this make them motherfuckers?
bill d
There must be a way we can tell the fetuses in the womb how wrong this is. Can we rig the ultrasound wands to deliver teensy eensy bibles as a distraction for them?
raven
@Tonybrown74: I’m on the prep for a certain “procedure” and it’s coffee and “Popsicle’s Icicles” for me all day!
bill d
@Scott S.:
The guy replaced Dick Armey, that will go a long way in making you look non-crazy.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Gin & Tonic: (applause)
The atom bomb of Internet trolling only fifteen posts in. On topic, even. You are a god among men.
Aji
@bill d: No, see, you’re missing the point. This will be used as justification for why God actually intended males to masturbate in 3 . . . 2 . . . .
Only males, of course. ‘Cause, y’know, Eve, that whore, is the one who brought sex and sin upon humanity, and so female masturbation, like all forms of female pleasure and sexual activity, is to be prevented at all costs (except when for the explicit purposes of the male), and failing that, punished severely.
Punchy
What happens if there’s fraternal twins in the womb and the boy and girl….uh….touch….each other? Can they be arrested for sexual battery upon birth? Can a OB/GYN slap cuffs on them while still in utero?
cvstoner
Again, Texas. Not a surprise.
Alex S.
OMG! What if the fetus faps and sperm comes out and what if there are twin babies and one is a girl and the sperm makes it pregnant and there is a baby in the baby???
Odie Hugh Manatee
Boys fapping off inside of their mom signaling “I’M ALIVE!”? Yup, sounds exactly like some kind of gooper fantasy.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@balconesfault: Because a physician is not necessarily a Doctor.
Rosalita
@Betty Cracker:
you win the thread. lol!!
gene108
If fetuses masturbate, why then does masturbation stop when the baby is born?
New born babies don’t have the coordination to masturbate, let alone remove their own diaper to get at their private bits.
What horrible trauma has the mother’s vagina caused the fetus to lose so much fine motor coordination, as the fetus passes out of the birth canal?
How can we improve on the vagina, so the next generation of humans will come into this world with the enough coordination to masturbate at birth?
Why aren’t scientists working on this vexing problem?
I’m sure liberals would love a world awash in masturbating infants, who will make themselves infertile before puberty and effectively end the human race faster than gay marriage.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@gene108: You (the royal MALE you) are not infected with Original Sin (R) until you leave the womb. Original Sin renders you unable to holy masturbate until you can learn some approximation of it as a teen. The whole reason Eve gave Adam the apple was because he was sitting around all day holy masturbating. She needed some too.
magurakurin
@jon:
amk
@bill d: lmao.
Shakezula
What sort of sick society do we live in where a man can announce he believes fetuses are sexually active and that man is not promptly beaten to death by enraged parents?
artem1s
@gene108:
because of a lack of [email protected]@, duh! 3, 2, 1…GOPer sponsored bill to provide free boner pills and guns to all male newborns. No Foodstamps, education, or healthcare though because Freedum!
Todd
@Gin & Tonic:
Quite possibly the finest comment on the internet today. Nonetheless, remember that thou art mortal.
dmsilev
I was unaware that (male) babies were typically born blind and with hairy palms.
dmsilev
@Alex S.:
It’s babies all the way down.
( from this)
Mike in NC
Please, GOP, do make preventing fetuses from pleasuring themselves the centerpiece of your 2014 platform.
What else have you got?
Jerzy Russian
Can’t we ban stupid already? If not an outright ban, then at least make stupid socially unacceptable.
TaMara (BHF)
Doesn’t this qualify this congressman as a pedophile? One must speculate. It would be irresponsible not to….
Shortstop
I bet we wouldn’t have to look too hard to find examples of this same person criticizing teenage masturbation as immoral and anti-Jesus.
dmsilev
@Mike in NC:
Forced implantation of fetal chastity belts! What could possibly go wrong?
Librarian
They’re just upset that fetuses are naked and not wearing tiny three-piece suits.
scav
The little spycams installed to surveil any miscarriages by the naughty naughtly slut incubators can be made two-way and provide pay-for-view porn for the xy-occupants. A proof that business-government cooperation can drive down crime and costs at the same time!
Roger Moore
@Punchy:
That’s going to be hard, what with the placenta in the way and all. Or am I being too literal and factual here.
Soonergrunt
Wow.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Roger Moore: You’re just forgetting to take into account the awesome power of God.
Soonergrunt
@Roger Moore: ” Or am I being too literal and factual here.”
For THIS discussion?
StringOnAStick
This is just clever base-pandering by this Texas moran. He knows most of the people who voted for him spend all night fapping to skinemax, internet freebies, etc (suitable females being unavailable of course, and too damned scary anyway). Making fetus ‘Merikans into fellow fapping aficionados puts them all in the same tribe, ergo more members of the Dittohood who must be defended at all costs. Freedum!
SiubhanDuinne
Those masturbating feti are going to grow fetal hair all over their fetal palms. And go fetally blind.
Vanya
I am confused. In the GOP mind wouldn’t a masturbating fetus be something you actually want to abort? Among the hard right Christians I used to know a fetus that was seen touching its privates could have only been the Anti-Christ, because the idea of one of God’s innocent lambs doing something so unclean would have been simply inconceivable. The GOP is getting soft.
SiubhanDuinne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Now I want to form a band called “The Masturbating Feti.”
mellowjohn
is that an in utero picture of Jaime and Cersie Lannister you’ve got up there?
Roger Moore
@SiubhanDuinne:
I still prefer Feedlot Bears.
currants
@nemesis: Margaret Atwood knew this.
The Dangerman
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
9 months to get out, the rest of your life trying to get back in.
SatanicPanic
How embarassing for the fetus. Not even out of the womb and dad’s making jokes about your ‘batin habits.
Denali
See, this is why we need the NSA, so we will have proof!
ThresherK
There’s a line to be drawn from the idea of fapping fetuses to an infant sexualizing breastfeeding.
I’m taking bets on which Republican draws that line in public first.
Califlander
@Vanya: The GOP is getting soft.
I see what you did there.
Tone in DC
@Tonybrown74:
I actually have had my caffeine, and I SURE AS SHIT didn’t need to read what this g00per said.
Narcissus
I wonder what it is like to BE one of these people. I mean we know how weird it looks from the outside. But what are the thought processes like of someone who has not one iota of self awareness.
Tonybrown74
There is some serious Oedipal issues with this one.
amk
@Denali: You brung a new definition of fetal monitor.
Seanly
My level of hatred for Republican politicians knows no bounds. I keep thinking I will hit Peak Hatred and yet they continue to garner more & more.
Davis X. Machina
oops
D58826
OK, lets try this one on for size. The forced birth crowd wants to have a fetus declared a person from the moment of conception with all the legal rights, and presumably responsibilities, of a born person. Now this wanking male fetus is sharing space with his fetus twin sister, so if he forces himself on her is that fetal rape? Will he be charged with a crime and sent to infant prison once he is born? The number of new crimes is breathtaking. Of course the private prison industry will be more than happy to meet the demand for these new kiddie jails. (sigh)
Pablo
I was listening to my wife’s belly today (we’re expecting a girl) and I heard a loud buzzing sound….hmmm
D58826
@Narcissus: are you talking about the fetus or the GOOPer congress critter?
Quaker in a Basement
Well there’s your proof. Some folks are just natural born jerkoffs.
kindness
If a baby Faps in the womb, how do they clean up after themselves?
Short Bus Bully
This thread is full of BJ WIN, which in some small way helps make up for the supertanker of FAIL unloaded by the Gooper congresscritter from Texas.
It’s a challenge to start the day this way, but y’all are doing your best to ease the pain.
Plus there’s nothing that these legislative Chuck Norris’ despise more than mockery.
Ash Can
I’m old enough to remember a time in this nation when people such as Michael Burgess were ignored, laughed at, ostracized, marginalized, shamed, and quite often shut away and/or medicated — not quoted in the press and sure as hell not elected to fucking Congress. What the fucking hell is the matter with this nation that people like this are put in positions of power, and, once there, not hounded back into obscurity when they behave like this?
Narcissus
@D58826: Well the GOPer of course. It would be unfair to ask such from a fetus.
Yatsuno
I just…
Nah. I’m done. One meteor, extra dense please.
wvng
@Short Bus Bully: Possibly the most BJ WIN evah!
Crop Dusted
Ann Althouse reads the BJ comment thread. Quotes Betty Cracker #1 in full :)
http://althouse.blogspot.com/2013/06/texas-congressman-masturbating-fetuses.html
gene108
@D58826:
One of the things implicit in fetal masturbation is the underlying assumption that fetuses and thus infants have some sort of cognition about their actions, which sort of goes in the face of what we’ve come to understand about infants based on the whole of human history.
Villago Delenda Est
@D58826:
Well, at least the slut in the womb has those natural defenses to prevent the baby in a baby thing, dontcha know.
Villago Delenda Est
@gene108:
“Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”
“Germans?”
“Forget it, he’s on a roll…”
scav
@Yatsuno: Michael Burgess’ head has the basic shape and density down — plus the essential spaceyness (with luck the heading for a fall-iness too, were it not for the TX part). Not enough tonnage, alas!
Yatsuno
@scav: A black hole from the Large Hadrion Collider would also be acceptable here.
Wilson Heath
@Vanya:
Yep. I was pretty sure that it was in Leviticus or some such that the Jebus demands we kill the ‘batin’ fetus. And then we celebrate our holy act with shrimp cocktails and bacon cheeseburgers.
jayjaybear
@Punchy: Even worse, what if they’re IDENTICAL twins and both boys and they start getting busy in there together?! GAY fetal incest!
Soonergrunt
@Crop Dusted: Althouse, desperately trying to kill two birds with one stone, and a) remain relevant, and b) turn this fail into something remotely embarrassing for us.
Two fails for the price of one, that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Wilson Heath:
While wearing poly-cotton blends?
eric
keep laughing libs…but now i think it is clear where the ghey comes from! little boys too busy touching themselves in the womb to understand just how close they are to the vagina. If only they had functional nervous systems at this point in time to feel pleasure and to make decisions about what to do in the “waiting room” for birth. I am assuming fox news is not on in the uterus
Yatsuno
@Crop Dusted: I read the comments. Wow. Most of those people couldn’t produce a coherent argument if you gave them a top debate team and a stack of thesaurii.
eric
thank me later
http://500px.com/photo/36459150
shortstop
@Soonergrunt: Right! It’s so sex-negative of us normally pan-horny libs to laugh our asses off at a medical doctor who seriously argues that fetuses whack off in utero.
Villago Delenda Est
@Crop Dusted:
The comments on her post are a monument to the intellectual bankruptcy of the forced birthers as they project like the octoplex down at the mall over Memorial Day weekend.
nastybrutishntall
Should we stone the self-abusing fetus in utero, or abort it first and then stone it to death? The Bible makes me so confused. Help me, Republican Jesus!
shortstop
@Villago Delenda Est: Do any of her students ever comment on her posts? Or are all her commenters still single, middle-aged, white, male wingers who rarely leave the house? I mean, since you’re already looking anyway…
Forum Transmitted Disease
Would not the pictures of fetal ‘batin that the good Congressman is referring to be, according to the letter of the law, child porn?
Yatsuno
The real sad part of all this is he’ll get re-elected handily. Because Jeebus and teh bebehs.
shortstop
@nastybrutishntall: You, sir or ma’am, have clearly never cracked the Bible. There will be no stoning of fetuses. God will smite the offending creature, at which point its vessel will miscarry. The correct course of action, now being discussed in the more ambitious winger circles, is for her state to require that all miscarriages be reported so these women can be investigated for possible abortion activities.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@eric: So, should we call the the money shot?
Villago Delenda Est
@Yatsuno:
What I want to know is where the hell are all these FEMA re-education camps I keep hearing about, and why isn’t every last person who voted for this assclown in one?
Obama is failing us, again!
quannlace
Maybe this is all part of the GOP’s previously stated aim to make abortion funny.
Betty Cracker
@Crop Dusted: Oh dear god. And I would be up to my eyeballs in work today, damn it.
Yatsuno
@Villago Delenda Est: WORSE THAN BUSH! SOLD US OUT! ELECT NADER/STEIN BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!
Avocat
Great comments, but I guess no one really wants to address the issue the guy raises: whether a fetus at some point in gestation feels pleasure or pain. If a fetus could feel pain at some point, would that be relevant at all to the abortion debate?
Soonergrunt
@Avocat: Other than addressing that “concern” in the third paragraph of the actual posting?
Denali
@Quannlace,
You an on to something there!
jimmy higgins
I dunno. Might be counterproductive for the Republicans. Wouldn’t your sensitive type mother-to-be tend be more inclined to terminate a pregnancy if she knew the little dickens was waxing the dolphin in there already…
Tonybrown74
@Betty Cracker:
When one is given so much material …
Bust out the sewing machines! I sense a fall fashion line coming!
Avocat
@Soonergrunt: Well I’m all for major medical bodies and the authority they represent–who wants to question that?–but maybe a fetus can feel pain later in gestation. Would that concern anyone?
Catsy
@Avocat:
BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT. Try again.
Yatsuno
@Avocat:
No.
AHH onna Droid
@dmsilev: Dog babies! Ermagerd!
shortstop
@Avocat: Why do you refuse to talk about fetuses shivering their timbers? What are you trying to hide from?
Catsy
@Avocat:
Nope, because it’s a complete red herring when it comes to the issue of abortion rights–about 1% of all abortions are performed after that point.
Your concern is noted, however, and filed in the appropriate drawer.
Villago Delenda Est
@Avocat:
OK, so it’s established foeti don’t feel pain, but you want us to imagine they do.
You are a prime candidate for retroactive abortion.
amk
@Avocat: Why can’t we all be civilized and address some whacko nutjob’s spurious claims reasonably, amirite ?
Mnemosyne
@Avocat:
It could be, but not necessarily in the way you think. If it turned out that fetuses with anencephaly or neural tube defects were in enormous pain because their defect meant that their nerve endings were constantly exposed, would you support aborting those pregnancies rather than forcing those fetuses to be in pain for the full nine months of gestation?
scav
@amk: With the caveat that “address” mean “agree with” in their GudSpelingBuk. It’s right before the “bipartisan” definition of “see address”.
Avocat
@Mnemosyne: Seems to me that if a fetus feels pain, we should consider that. Surely a fetus does feel pain at some point in gestation.
Avocat
@Villago Delenda Est: Ha ha, retroactive abortion, that’s good! However it seems logical that a fetus feels pain at some point in gestation, even if late in the term.
Villago Delenda Est
@Avocat:
Just curious, but are you an advocate (no pun intended) of “enhanced interrogation techniques”?
Mnemosyne
@Avocat:
So you agree that if a fetus with no chance of surviving outside of the womb is also show to be in pain while still in the womb, it’s more humane to abort that fetus than force the pregnancy to continue to term?
scav
Clearly, if a fetus or human should ever feel pain at any point in its theoretical existence, the self-evident pleasure of two cells rubbing together during gestation is clear evidence of personhood that trumps all consideration of the mere slut incubators interests and rights.
Avocat
@Villago Delenda Est: Just kind of thinking out loud, I would not want anyone to feel pain unless absolutely necessary, but what do I know? Maybe a fetus does not feel anything at any stage of gestation.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mnemosyne:
That’s different, you putz! It’s Jeebus’ will!
Villago Delenda Est
@scav:
Absolutely. Fuck the slut incubator!
(do you see what I did there?)
Villago Delenda Est
@Avocat:
The forced birth crowd seems to lose all interest in this new life once it leaves the womb. To the point of defunding Planned Parenthood’s efforts at prenatal care for expectant mothers who have no interest in ending their pregnancy except by giving birth to a healthy child.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Avocat: No.
? Martin
@Avocat:
Why is that logical? One of the last things to fully develop is the central nervous system. Breathing response is fully suppressed until birth (at any gestational age). And preemies don’t appear to feel pain until about 35 weeks. My daughter was born at 32 weeks and didn’t respond at all to IVs and the like when she was in the NICU. The nurses explained to us that it was normal for preemies that early.
Avocat
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Well I would think that even those who favor the death penalty would not want the prisoner to feel pain.
Villago Delenda Est
@Avocat:
You would be wrong.
shortstop
This troll is enjoying a really large lunch.
greenergood
‘GAY fetal incest’! Punk band name extraordinaire! And since when are Repugs interested in ‘pleasure’? (Except in the privacy of their dens, downloading the Prorn). Funny how Utah so closely resembles Pakistan: http://www.news.com.au/technology/pakistan-no1-in-the-world-in-pornographic-internet-searches/story-e6frfro0-1225891491204
Forum Transmitted Disease
@Avocat: Shove the little blob of shit in a sausage grinder for all I care. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s too many goddamn people on this planet and we’re out of room.
White Trash Liberal
-incoming sonogram-
GO AWAY! ‘BATIN!
scav
@White Trash Liberal: Get those early-term sonograms vibratin’ and the fetalbater will really get human!
riptyde
The Old Testament says masturbation is a sin punishable by death, so doesn’t this mean we SHOULD abort the fetus if it’s masturbating.
Yatsuno
@shortstop: Feed the trolls, tuppence a bag…
Avocat
@Forum Transmitted Disease: Cool.
Imani Gandy (ABL)
via Myrtle C. on my Facebook wall:
“Boy fetii should not wank in utero. They could get their mothers pregnant and be twins with their own babies.
*bet nobody thought about that*”
El Cid
@? Martin: Also a big part of science is about learning the difference between what seems logical and what actually appears to be the case.
Vanya
@riptyde: I’ve always wondered how Christians reconcile the idea of miscarriages with the idea that God wants all feti born. This clears it up – a miscarriage must be God striking down the masturbators in utero.
Bob In Portland
Well, sperm wiggle their tails. That’s got to suggest consciousness of thought.
Tone in DC
@Imani Gandy (ABL):
OH NOES!!!
Not a Republican!
Be sure that I am asking the next doctor I go to if they are a Republican!