The Rose&#39;s Grove

.. from what I read, Palin does support domestic partnership rights, but not marriage (essentially the same position as Obama).

I'll agree that voting for someone because of his/her gender is just as bad as voting against someone because of his/her gender . . but would like to tack on that being a woman is not an ideological position. Conservative women exist, and they're just as female as liberal women - I'm seeing a lot of commentary to the effect that Palin doesn't really count as a woman candidate because she's conservative and especially because she's pro-life. As a fellow pro-life woman, I really strenuously object to this (and would be happy to explain my stance as a prolife feminist if you care to hear it - I know you said you don't like arguing with friends, but I'm feeling the need to at least assert my existence, here, given the media's reaction to Palin's candidacy). You know, if a young, ambitious and attractive woman being staunchly prolife upsets a few people's ideas of what it means to be a woman, a feminist, or a prolifer - count me as not remotely sorry for that.

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I didn't mean to give the impression that I don't think young female conservatives exist. I don't understand the appeal of the conservative standpoint for women, but I definitely recognize that there are a good number of women who fall into that category, including several people I've considered friends over the years.

Here's my issue with social conservatism - I understand not believing that some things are right. I understand understand believing that some things are bad. There are a lot of things that I believe are bad or wrong. My issue is that socially conservative politics tend to be based on the belief that just because I (I'm saying 'I' because I think all people have this impulse) don't think something is right, that means nobody should be able to do it. If I don't like people being able to marry people of the same sex, nobody be able to. (There are issues involved in the abortion question that go way beyond this, and I recognize that, so I'll keep away from that part of the argument.)

For me, moral questions like that are simply something that should be decided by each individual. If I fall in love and want to marry a girl, that's my decision. It doesn't hurt anybody else, and I'd like to have that option, just the same as anybody else who falls in love. Obviously not all the issues are that simple, but for me, a lot of the conservative platform comes down to trying to limit people's options to what a small amount of people think is morally right - limitations that don't match with my morality. And likewise there's a callous disregard for the environment in a lot of conservative circles that really appalls me on a moral and spiritual level, as well. If life is such a concern for conservatives, I can't help thinking that they should be more careful about all life, as well as showing more concern for the life of children after they're born (healthcare, education, not getting us involved in terrible wars that kill thousands of people and mess up our foreign policy...) rather than just while they're still in the womb.

All of that is a general argument - I'm not trying to accuse you of any of that. I haven't gotten that impression from you at all. I'm just trying to explain my concerns about what I see in the conservative movement in general.

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. . I don't really disagree with anything you've said above. :) I very much support legal recognition gay marriage (and I say it that way because I tend to think half the problem with this issue is the government thinking it has the right to define marriage in the first place, which I don't think it does.) And I'm very concerned about environmental issues, probably to the point that I'd horrify a fair number of bleeding-heart liberals - for example, I'm more or less categorically against the use of herbicides and pesticides, unless there's a real, empirically documented risk to the public welfare (i.e. disease, famine from crop loss, etc.) if they're not used. I don't think that stuff belongs on the shelves in WalMart for people to dump indiscriminately on their lawns 'cause dandelions offend them or something. Part of it is just that it offends my moral/religious sensibilities and part of it is that the risk/benefit balance of random use of toxic chemicals is . . um, not balanced. At all.

So, I don't consider myself a conservative - my politics are very eclectic. But I'm a pro-life pagan young woman. I've been involved in pro-life activism. I've had conservative Christian prolifers (women, incidentally) tell me I'm being a tool of Satan and that it'd be better for a baby to be aborted than to grow up pagan, and I've had prochoicers tell me I'm a traitor to my gender and I deserve to be raped. Yes, really, I'm in no way making up or exaggerating either. Yes, I realize neither of these are exactly shining examples of their respective viewpoints. I've actually backed off of my activism because I didn't like spending the vast majority of my time furious - and at my allies as often as at my opposition.

So when I hear criticism of a prolife woman - whether I agree with her on a damned thing else or not - in the vein that she's somehow less of a woman for her viewpoint, it has a tendency to make my head explode.

I doubt Palin's experience of being a prolifer has been equivalent to mine, because she is more across-the-board conservative, but I find it highly offensive (and I'm reacting to the media coverage of her nomination, here, not to you personally) when prochoice women feel the need to scoff at the idea of their prolife counterparts being actual feminists or even actual strong and opinionated women, as if being prolife automatically makes us brainwashed tools of the patriarchy, as if we can't possibly have reached these conclusions on our own. I'd like to see just one of those pundits stand in a prolife picket line wearing a pentacle. For an hour. Then get back to me on how meek and unassuming and brainwashed I must be.

. . and sorry for the rant. Again, not aimed at you. As stated above, this makes my head explode.

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It actually really surprises me in a lot of ways that there aren't more pro-lifers in paganism - as far as religions go, I can't think of anything to match paganism for being all-around literally "pro-life," and my own qualms about abortion if the issue came up for myself would come from the part of me that's still very much pagan in philosophy. (I can't remember how obvious it is in my user-info and all, but I considered myself pagan for something on the order of ten years before deciding that really I was more pantheist/atheist than anything... all or nothing, so to speak. ;) I still have a lot of affection for paganism.) I still think it's a personal decision and that it's important for the option to be there for women who need it (if only, as a point of argument, to prevent the kind of horrifying back-alley abortions that happened before Roe vs. Wade), but I'm no more thrilled with some of the militant pro-choice folks than I am with some of the militant pro-lifers. The extremist, vitriolic sort of rhetoric on both sides upsets me, and it turns an already complex issue into a total nightmare.

I'm not generally into activism in any sense, both out of a desire to avoid arguments and a sense that it leads to extremism, not to mention more stress than I can handle - I've already got a bit of a heart condition, which is absurd at my age and general level of health. The last thing I need is political activism making it worse by getting me angry all the time. I get enough of that just being on the internet. ;)

...I really just can't wait until this whole stupid election thing is over. I feel lately like I can't remember before the whole thing began, and it's annoying me to no end. Most countries have a limit on campaign seasons... why can't we have something like that in the U.S.? I get to the point sometimes where I feel like I just hate everyone involved in politics, and that's really not a state to be making decisions in. *Sigh*

(That's a complaint about the general situation, not this conversation - I've actually quite enjoyed this conversation, and thinking about it saved my sanity through a particularly hellish task right at the end of my day here at work!)

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I'm glad to provide distraction from hellish work-tasks. :)

My view on abortion is, simply put, that it's killing a living human being. It's a violation of human rights. But I'm no more thrilled at the idea of back-alley abortions than you are; the idea is no abortions, nobody (mother or fetus) dying. So while I do want the government to acknowledge and uphold the right to life, from conception, I also want the both the government and the private sector to do a hell of a lot more to reduce the sorts of situations that lead to most abortions. If you look at stats on why most women choose abortion, a LOT of it is economic - and in one of the richest countries in the world, that's frankly pathetic. I respect an individual woman's right to opt not to be a mother - through use of birth control, or lifestyle choices, whatever works for her, choice before conception - but I also think actual, practical equality for women means acknowledging that yeah, women are the ones who get pregnant, can breastfeed, etc., and thus equality for women means acknowledging the value of those things and making society work around them, rather than making women work around a society built on the premise that it's men who get educations, run companies, pursue the sciences, etc. A setup where a childless woman can achieve but a woman with a child can't, isn't a female-friendly set-up. It's a still-grossly-patriachal setup throwing us a proverbial bone. If we honestly think it's important that women participate fully in all aspects of society - not that they should be allowed but that they must if society is to reach its full potential, that it's society that loses and not just women if women are excluded, if we actually value their (our) contribution . . . and if we actually care about how we raise our children and their welfare, if we actually think parenting is one of the more important things anyone can do . . . well, then we damned well need to put our money where our mouths are.

And I'd say if it was more possible to pursue an education, a career, whatever, whilst being a responsible mother, you'd see a heck of a lot fewer women even seeking abortions. And yes I do think the corporate world, academia, etc., do need to change that much, and no I really don't care that it's not the most immediately profitable move monetarily or the most competitive academically, it's what's best for the freakin' survival of the species in the long run, and what the heck are companies and colleges made up of if not people?

. . . . and bleh, there goes another rant. Hopefully you find this one equally amusing.

I'm gonna go back to making Hellboy II photo manips now - sticking green things in Nuala's throne room. That sounds soothing, doesn't it?

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My job, while sometimes amusing, can be unbelievably tedious.

I'm in total agreement with you that the big underlying, rotting issue is sexism, and a public sphere that simply isn't designed to deal with women in a fair way. Plain and simple, we have a lot of expenses and problems that men don't - and I'm not talking wardrobe and makeup (I've heard that argument tossed around before, and I think that while it's a problem that we have to spend more money to look "business competitive" than a man of our equivalent rank, making a big deal of that runs the risk of making the larger issue look frivolous). I'm talking about everything associated with menstruation, including days taken off because sometimes it makes us so sick we can't go to work and be functional. I've lost more hours at work to menstrual-related issues than I have to colds, flu, etc., that's for sure, and it's just not something men have to worry about. And then of course there's pregnancy. You're very right that economy and job/school is the main issue at work there, in terms of terminating pregnancy. But let's be honest - how likely is it that all of western civilization is actually going to rewrite itself within the next ten years to allow women to have babies without it putting them back? How, in practical terms, could that even be done? I can't realistically imagine a way for women not to be the ones inherently more responsible for childbirth and infancy, barring all sorts of exotic "raise babies in laboratories" type of solutions. Even if men can be convinced/encouraged/forced to take an active and equal role in child-rearing (which, so far, I see only sparse anecdotal evidence for even in the best cases), women will always be the ones paying the physiological, financial, and emotional cost.

Birth control is only about 90% effective. Lifestyle choices are an option, of course, but I don't think it's fair, from a feminist perspective, to say "sure, men can have sex any time they want, but women, if you're going to have it with a man, you'd better be willing to pop out a kid if the condom breaks." There's also the question of rape to consider - I'm sorry, but I cannot in good conscience tell a woman who's been raped "sorry, but you really should have the baby." That's an extreme example of course, but it's an example that happens. Until the world gets a bit closer to matching our ideals in terms of equality and opportunities, I feel like the option has to be there, and that it's up to individuals to make the choice that they can live with. If it's a choice between a young woman being forced to raise a baby that she's not ready for, doesn't want and can't afford, and that will, yes, in the current system really screw up her options for an education and a good job, and having that young woman have an opportunity to make a better life for herself, I can't stand the thought of her not having the option to take those opportunities. I guess I'd say that not everyone can afford not to be selfish.

And yay, green things! That does sound soothing. Maybe I'll try to fit a little drawing in later... that sounds like a nice use for a little time on a long weekend.

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fey-spirit.livejournal.com

I really don't know how to phrase this without vocal tones so that you will know this is not an attack except to say, this is not an attack.

How can you justify a pro-life position outside of the bounds of religion? In other words, it's wrong because it's ending a life - but how do we define (short of first breath and coming out of the womb into the world) as the moment when a child is actually alive... without using religious beliefs?

I'm kind of odd in that I am personally very pro-life (provided provisions are made for the mother's health and exceptions are made for things like rape) but legislatively I'm pro-choice because I still can't find a good reason outside of my religious beliefs, or someone else's for that matter to make it illegal and I refuse to condone crossing that line. We've already begun to see just how slippery that slope can really be.

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Well, Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines "life" (in the sense that I am using the word here - lots of definitions for that word, obviously) as "an organismic state characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction."

Obviously, an embryo grows. Its cells reproduce - it's not capable of reproduction as an organism while it's in an embryo, but neither is an infant or a child; I think we can agree that the potential capacity for reproduction once it hits puberty counts here. And it reacts to stimuli - at roughly two months it starts becoming sensate in various parts of the body and will react reflexively - essentially, flinch - if touched. And it's sensitive to other sorts of stimuli in a less fortunate and less cute way more or less from the time it implants - i.e. it can be affected if Mom smokes, drinks, etc. (Reaction to a stimulus doesn't have to be something immediate and conscious, or else you couldn't count plants as alive.)

Which leaves us with metabolism, and here I'm going to get a little bit into the mechanics of pregnancy and embryology. The woman's body sustains the embryo but the embryo is in large part responsible for maintaining the pregnancy. A few days after conception, but before implantation, the embryo starts giving off a hormone - human chorionic gonadotropin - that tells the follicle in the woman's ovary (that had housed the egg which has become the embryo) to stick around and keep producing progesterone. This keeps the lining of the uterus, the endometrium, around - prevents menstruation.

When the embryo first implants, the placenta isn't developed enough to sustain it and it doesn't have blood either - for the first few weeks, it actually survives off of a yolk sac, just exactly like something growing in an egg. So, again, maintaining itself.

I forget the exact timeline, but at some point within the first two months, the placenta goes online, so to speak, and then the embryo is obtaining its nutrients and oxygen from its mother's blood, and passing its cellular-level waste out to her bloodstream. The placenta is generally considered a materno-fetal organ, and organ of the pregnancy rather than belonging to either individual, but it exists to interface between the two circulatory systems. The embryo has its own blood which may be of a different type than the mother's. Its blood is pumped through the placenta by its own heart, which starts beating at roughly three weeks, 21-23 days post-conception. The maternal half of the placenta essentially makes her blood available, and that's about it. The fetal half of the placenta acts a bit like a lung, only filtering oxygen (and nutrients) out of blood rather than air. Point being, the mother's body does nothing to maintain the embryo's metabolism aside from providing increased blood flow through the endometrium, and housing the embryo (which couldn't maintain its own body temperature). So the embryo and then fetus is definately highly dependent, but I think it's also clearly a distinct individual, a different organism from its mother, existing in symbiosis with her.

(And my experience of past debates is that somebody always wants to call it a parasite here - which really isn't an argument, parasites are individual organisms, so that's kinda making my point for me, just making it in an ugly way. But anyway, parasitism has to be harmful to the host, and a healthy pregnancy isn't harmful to the mother. The correct term for a symbiotic relationship in which one benefits and the other is neither helped nor harmed significantly is commensalism.)

So, basically, I think the embryo or fetus is alive because IMO it meets the definition of an individual organism. And, obviously, it's human - it's not like two human parents are going to produce an oak tree or an emu. So it's a living human being, and ought to have rights as such.

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tonsai.livejournal.com

I just wanted to address this briefly: "Palin does support domestic partnership rights, but not marriage (essentially the same position as Obama)."

The difference is the Palin supports a federal ban on gay marriage, whereas Obama isn't pushing for any such action.

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beam-oflight.livejournal.com

I saw her on the news tonight, she seemed like a postergirl for the Republican party. It all just seems rather transparent though as far as trying to tap into the Hillary voters. I can't believe there's still 3 months of campaigning to go, your electionsa re so long, and nasty.

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She'll be a good fundie-magnet, too, for all those people who think McCain isn't quite enough of a conservative. *Sigh*

Yeeeeeeeeah. I keep hearing that other countries have limits on the campaigning crap, and I've got to say, I seriously wish the U.S. would do that, too. Not to mention the asinine piles of money that all the campaigns spend on advertising, travel, and so on... it's really sickening to me. All that money people are giving to them to campaign could go to much better uses, in charities. Or, say, paying off some of our impossibly absurd national debt.

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zinjadu.livejournal.com

I'm calling it the Uterus Vote. If the fact that a candidate has a uterus is more important than their stance on the issues, it's just the same as voting for a man simply because he has a penis.

Reproductive organs should have nothing to do with politics. XD

So don't vote with your uterus or your penis, people. Vote with your brain.

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I actually do Uterus Vote. My usual selection process goes that my candidate needs to be a) from my party b) a woman c) around my age and d) lives in my neck of the woods. Once I even voted completely against my political stance for the sheer chance of a female President, which we didn't get at the time (fortunately, six years later I got the chance to vote for a woman from my side of the fence - she's a full twelve years in the office, got second term in 2006).

There are some good male candidates that I could have voted many times, but wouldn't out of principle. I won't let gender play part in my voting as soon as women have a 45-65% representation in the parliament, but until then... It's decidedly a factor. I have some issues with Parliamentarism, and the skewed representation of the people is only one of them. Anyway, I don't think a Penis Vote is the same, as it's differently motivated with regards to history.

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morchades.livejournal.com

I'll admit to letting it play a factor, but this lady is specifically harmful to my rights as a woman so the Uterus Vote actually goes against her.

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No question there; if I were an American, I'd be all over Obama. It was only fiscal disagreement I had with the first female presidential candidate I voted for.

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zinjadu.livejournal.com

I don't know enough about Finland's political climate to comment on your choices, but I will say that in America a lot of women Republicans are more harmful to women's issues than nearly anyone else.

Still, for me I would rather vote on my issues than someone's gender. I would rather have laws enacted that I believe in, instead of just having female bodies fill public offices. I agree, whole-heartedly, that there should be more women in office, but I still could never vote for someone I don't agree with, regardless of the circumstances.

That is true, that the Penis Vote has more history behind it, but like I said voting for someone based on gender--especially in America where it's very politically polarized--have equally shallow results for both genders. The intent might be different, but the results are very similar: the issues are second to gender.

It might work better in the Parliamentary system, as you probably have more of a gradient of political views as opposed to the American style of "one or the other." I don't know.

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It's gone downhill from then, so I probably wouldn't do it anymore. There are so many good candidates to parliamentary and municipal elections I can vote for that I agree with and who meet my personal criteria. And anyway, the President here has only a nominal role in legislation, so rather than voting on issues, we're supposed to be voting for the party (although, in this day and age, it's really voting for the personality of the candidate).

And yeah, a lot of what I read about Republican stances just frighten me. But they say here that even our right wing is left of the US left wing - which, while not entirely true, has often made it difficult for me to figure out where I'd stand. I understand that fringe-voting is seen as rather useless, and having to make a choice in a strict binary I'd probably find rather constricting. I think I'd have voted for Hilary, and I think I would vote for Obama, and this would be my uterus voting, too.

The Penis Vote I see as being an attempt to maintain a status quo/privilege, or even yearning a return to some kind of mythicized past, while the Uterus vote is more egalitarian, in the current climate. I didn't vote for her gender the second time I voted for our President, the second time I voted for her because she's awesome. There was a lot of Penis voting going on the second time she was elected, though.

But women are still under represented in the Parliament here, which will continue to factor into my voting as long as that's the case. Of course there are other issues that matter - I pick my candidate from my party's column - I just want my representative to actually represent me, you know.

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I admit that if I was looking at two candidates who were both aligned with my views to an equal degree, I'd vote for the woman over the man. Maybe that's unfair, but I still think it's worth an extra push for women in power. When issues are involved, though... if the woman doesn't agree with my views as closely as the man, I'm voting for the man.

You're right that there's still a gap that needs to be dealt with. I just worry that's going to play an unpleasant part in this current election... I'd rather have the Democrats in with two men than the Republicans with one woman.

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I'd rather have the Democrats in with two men than the Republicans with one woman.

With everything that's been going on the last eight years -- yeah, me too.

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diea.livejournal.com

The first thing I though when I saw this on CNN was, "I hope she knows she was only picked because she's a woman."

Honestly, anyone who decides to vote for McCain just because he has chosen a woman for his running mate is, frankly, an idiot.

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