Bad Answers: Inevitable Result of Mistaken Beliefs

Obviously the goal is to Kill Babies. Couldn’t be anything in there about, oh, wanting babies to be born to people who actually want them. Or wanting to preserve for teens the chance at broad opportunities in life, undiminished by a single mistake. I guess it’s just the naturally murderous nature of obstetricians and gynecologists. Plus that ugly idea that a single cell is not already a cuddly, cooing pink-toed living human baby.

And she had to answer (in part):

But to encourage a lack of responsibility and accountability for one’s actions–by eliminating the consequences (pregnancy) rather than the cause (sex)–is what we are opposed to.

Get that? Pregnancy is a CONSEQUENCE. The punishment for a lack of accountability.

Yeah, you godless sluts, no getting off free for YOU. Have that baby and see how you feel THEN!

If you would like to have a broad chance at opportunities, the best way to avoid diminishing that is to NOT make the single mistake! Is it not the case that abstaining from drinking alcohol is the most logical way to avoid alcoholism? Sure, it may not be *realistic* or *practical*, which seems to be the criticism of abstinence, but when human well being and human lives are at stake, are we going to go with what’s safe or what’s practical?

Stop having sex! Stop it! Human well being and human lives are at stake!

Later she adds:

Actually, there is no such thing as a “fertilized egg,” scientifically speaking. At the moment that fertilization occurs, a new, unique human being is created and the “egg” is no more.

Like I said, a cuddly, cooing pink-toed living human baby.

Ms. Brown says she is not opposed to other forms of birth control, as long as … well, essentially as long as they don’t result in murder of cuddly, cooing pink-toed human babies.

In a follow-up comment, I make a point about “wantedness” — which to me is the heart of the entire issue of birth control:

This is not to mention the life an unwanted child may be condemned to. The huge unspoken assumption in all the pro-life arguments seems to be “Oh, somehow that baby will be loved. It’ll just happen.” Some of us out here know it sometimes just doesn’t.

Seems to me that any woman having any doubts at all about whether she wants to have a baby right now should have available EVERY possible way to prevent it … until she consciously and deliberately decides that she really does want a baby.

My motto is: Every child wanted, every child loved — whatever it takes. Family planning, contraceptives, condoms, adoption, abortion. Whatever it takes.

Her predictable interpretation is:

You’re basically arguing that if a person isn’t loved, they should be killed and blotted out of existence.

Argh. No, I’m saying PLAN PREGNANCY SO THAT EVERY BABY BORN IS LOVED.

See where we both are? I think I’m talking about maximizing love, enhancing life and joy; she thinks I’m talking about murder. One-hundred-eighty degrees opposite. Our conclusions couldn’t be further apart.

There is a single belief — a religious belief — at the heart of this discrepancy.

Brown has the unshakeable conviction that there’s something special about the fertilized egg. Though she never mentions it, that something special is a soul — which in her religious view (I’m guessing from the context), takes up residence at the instant of fertilization.

Thanks to that mistaken belief, Brown is opposed to contraception such as the kinds most poor women would choose if given the option. Resulting — as this study shows — in more than five times the unplanned births that would otherwise occur.

(As someone who grew up poor, I don’t think I need to point out that five extra children in the same space that might otherwise hold one, if the parents were given a choice, is a recipe for a large number of less-than-joyous childhoods. But I’ll point it out anyway, for the Mitt Romneys among us.)

Religious beliefs have real-world consequences. Those consequences match the wrongness or rightness of the belief itself.

Her mistaken belief, if given free rein and concretized in law, would — DOES! — cause immense misery.