"I wanted to rip off their heads and tear out their hearts ... "

April 26, 2007 8:59 AM

A Michigan blogger recounts a rather gripping tale of him and his wife: how he ended up facing alone a difficult decision for which very few men ever find themselves solely responsible. The subject can be a debate landmine, but that's not a reason not to pass along one of the more powerful and thought-provoking bits of writing that I've stumbled across on the Web recently.
posted by WCityMike (67 comments total)

Read this earlier today; it's quite the story. Though, I think you should have posted it in the last abortion thread from a week back. I think his take on things is about right: politicians have no business meddling in what is a totally personal matter between a family and their doctor.
posted by chunking express at 9:02 AM on April 26, 2007

Man, that was heart-wrenching. I'm glad his wife survived.
posted by EatTheWeak at 9:08 AM on April 26, 2007

Very heart-wrenching. What a horrible experience.
posted by gomichild at 9:19 AM on April 26, 2007

this wouldn't have been nearly as powerful and thought-provoking had it come from an ohio blogger.
posted by quonsar at 9:32 AM on April 26, 2007 [3 favorites]

Great post. Great and horrendous story. I wonder how many right-wing, ultra-conservative jesus freaks will read it. Two, maybe? I find that people who fit that profile avoid this type of information like the plague. But, I suppose one must be careful when your house of cards is built upon the sand.

It gets me to thinking about the whole "life is sacred" philosophical phenomenon that we all get to live with today. Funny that it is a recent phenomenon; I am no historian, but it is my understanding that most societies throughout history have not thought this way (AT ALL). I think that cultures have to have reached a pinnacle of luxury and excess to actually foster and maintain such a fallacy. Also funny, the only people I know who actually think this way basically have no life. Self-awareness, overcoming obstacles, etc. all are lost on them.

I suppose it is a comfort to fight in the battle for "life" when one has passively accepted their lot in life and lacks the courage and fortitude to mold their own life. Fighting to bring your vision into your reality is the only battle for life that has ever truly existed. All others are only slaves who find their purpose in making things more difficult for the rest of us.
posted by melangell at 9:33 AM on April 26, 2007

My fiancee and I are expecting twins who are about that far along. Reading this was like getting punched in the gut, almost literally. Thanks for posting it.
posted by EarBucket at 9:36 AM on April 26, 2007

Very intense. I was struck by his blog about the recent court decision, though:

The Supreme Court will NEVER overturn Roe v Wade, at least not if the GOP has anything to say about it. It is too valuable as a fundraising vehicle, for one. And it would give an immediate fundraising boost and grassroots boost to the pro-choice movement. It would also make the GOP a permanent minority party

That's just a very stupid idea, and it implies that the GOP is somehow disconnected in from their base in away that allows their internal politics to be completely disconnected from their external politics. It would be like saying the democratic party would never end the Iraq war because then we would have no reason to vote for them.

In fact, the GOP has been pushing this for decades. The people who have been coming up the ranks in the party are exactly the same people who were first cynically pandered too. Guy's like Alito and especially a lot of the senators and congress men really believe this stuff.

I think it comes from a sort of blindness or a lack of empathy that people who could possibly really believe that abortion was wrong could also be smart, or politically adept or really care about the issue. But in fact, there is every reason to believe that many in the republican party oppose abortion as strongly as someone like Howard Dean or Kos opposes the war.
posted by delmoi at 9:40 AM on April 26, 2007

Powerful writing and story. Thanks for this post WCityMike.

My loving thoughts to the man who wrote that, to his wife and condolences on the death of their unborn.

As a homeless, penniless, pregnant runaway at 16 in 1970 I was totally terrified about what to do or not to do. Abortions were still illegal. When I miscarried I was put in the maternity ward next to the room with the newborns. It was heart-breaking any way I looked at it.

Even as a Buddhist, I'm still pro-choice.

As a female it's angered me that the males I've had sex with didn't seem to even want to think about pregnancy as a result of the sex act they were so intensely interested in having with me. Pregnancy, apparent in their attitude about not wanting to wear a condom or discuss birth control prior to the sex act, was supposed to my sole responsibility. However, the child, if one were to be born, would be theirs to co-own, if they felt like it.

It's so good to read that a man was in the position to feel what it's like to think about the birth and death of his unborn child and the life of his wife during pregnancy. That hasn't been my experience and it's comforting to read.
posted by nickyskye at 9:43 AM on April 26, 2007 [4 favorites]

It makes me wonder whether the woman was actually dilated (and that thus the loss of the baby was inevitable) or whether the medical team said that to make the decision less painful for him/in order to hurry things along in the interests of the woman. Given it was so early in the pregnancy and thus with no hope of the baby surviving if the parent died (I am reading that correctly I hope?) it seemed not that complex a decision, though a horrible one to have to make.
posted by biffa at 9:55 AM on April 26, 2007

Situations like this are exactly the kind of things that are worthy of debate on the Senate floor when abortion is discussed.

Just to start with, I'm what you'd call fairly pro-choice. Still, it all causes something of an internal struggle for me. I can never decide where to draw the line. Birth? Well, there's nothing magical about passing a baby through someone's vagina, and, with C-sections, it's no longer even necessary. When the fetus is viable? Exactly what is "viable" now? With or without an incubator? What about other preemie care, like adding surfactant to their lungs? Ventilators? Technology has rendered the viability criterion very complex. And certainly the idea of abortion as birth control (whoopsie) is repugnant, but I can't imagine it happening that often. IANAG (I Am Not A Girl), but, having cared for various women post-abortion, I doubt anyone in their right mind would sign up for that kind of pain just so they wouldn't have to take a little pill on a daily basis, or get an IUD, etc.

And yet I do have to question the motives of pro-lifers. If it's really a "human life," having rape or incest as exceptions doesn't make sense. The old "fire in the fertility clinic" scenario also comes to mind. I don't see a lot of funerals for fetuses that don't make it to term - wouldn't that be logically consistent? If abortion is murder, wouldn't miscarriage count as involuntary manslaughter? She really didn't take that folic acid as well as she could have. And yet we're not locking up women who have miscarriages, especially the ones who have numerous miscarriages. They know they're putting a human life at risk, right? Logical consistency demands that we lock these women up before they kill again.

A close friend, who had enormously high blood pressure, became pregnant. Her birth control had failed her, through no fault of her own. She was told by doctors that she should abort or face a solid risk of a stroke, but that she could possibly carry to term and lower her risks of stroke if she laid in bed (including use of bedpans) for the entire pregnancy. Is that a health alert? It sure sounds like it, but she could have taken those extraordinary measures. Exactly how will the law judge that?

Perhaps what makes it most problematic for me is the nature of law itself. Law seems to be, in many cases, "common sense for the clueless," as well as a way to create a level playing field, and occasionally to just create standards (let's all pick one side of the road to drive on, and stick with it). The law's dividing lines, however, are often arbitrary. Legal ... not legal. Baby ... not a baby. The black and white nature of the law makes a lot of situations ridiculous, like that magical second that imbues people with the ability to make rational decisions about sex, just prior to your seventeenth (or whatever) birthday.

Which is precisely why I want the law to step out of it. I have common sense, and the law tends to ignore some of the finer points of real life.
posted by adipocere at 9:57 AM on April 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

oh, and I did take the pill, after the miscarriage, and it caused such depression I couldn't continue to take it. Then got an IUD (only available at that time in England for a female over 18 years of age), which was severely painful for the two years I endured it and likely caused inability to have a child.
posted by nickyskye at 10:10 AM on April 26, 2007

how many right-wing, ultra-conservative jesus freaks will read it

I'm conservative, and I read it. Why wouldn't I?

It was a sad story, but I think his lashing out at pro-lifers is misplaced. Most of the pro-lifers I know, when faced with this choice, would probably opt to terminate a 9 week pregnancy to save the life of the mother.
posted by tadellin at 10:15 AM on April 26, 2007

if anyone tells me politicians should meddle in what should be between one's doctor and one's self, I'll tell them, politely, to go fuck themselves, and then explain why.

Hear, hear!!
posted by nofundy at 10:33 AM on April 26, 2007

Most of the pro-lifers I know, when faced with this choice, would probably opt to terminate a 9 week pregnancy to save the life of the mother.

Agreed. Even the most unbending abortion opponents I've been acquainted with believe in choice when the life of the mother is at stake. And I'd guess there's a good number of pro-lifers who believe in a health exception -- it seems to me even a good number of people I know in Utah who put abortion issues high on their list of heuristics for choosing political candidates still believe in it.

I don't, however, know how many of them know that some of the recent legislation doesn't include a health exception, or have thought about how frightening that could be, especially when you're hovering around the line between the two, uncertain whether or not you've crossed it.
posted by weston at 10:53 AM on April 26, 2007 [2 favorites]

Most of the pro-lifers I know, when faced with this choice, would probably opt to terminate a 9 week pregnancy to save the life of the mother.

Yeah, and in the next breath they would exclaim that abortion-on-demand is an outrage, with all those loose women with no morals having lots of sex and killing their babies. Because it's alright for them to terminate a pregnancy under circumstances they feel justify it, but it's not okay to let other people make the same decisions for themselves.
posted by junkbox at 10:56 AM on April 26, 2007 [5 favorites]

Here's where the conservative argument against abortion is inconsistent. In Exodus 21, lots of laws and punishments are laid down, including,

Verse 12: Death is the punishment for murder.

and,

Verse 22: Suppose a pregnant woman suffers a miscarriage as the result of an injury caused by someone who is fighting. If she isn't badly hurt, the one who injured her must pay whatever fine her husband demands and the judges approve.

Logically from that,

Causing miscarriage (abortion) is NOT equal to murder.
posted by Doohickie at 11:20 AM on April 26, 2007 [4 favorites]

Doohickie: Thanks for articulating the conservative argument against abortion and then refuting it all within the span of 9 lines of text. When you put it that way, it makes me wonder why we all fight so much over this topic.
posted by Slap Factory at 11:43 AM on April 26, 2007

You know, I was just thinking that exactly what the abortion debate needs is more dire emotional anecdotes.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:44 AM on April 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

In Chile or Nicaragua, this woman would have died. Not all of the "pro-life" policies make an exception for the life of the mother.

If you read the comments ot the post, a lot of people share personal stories. There's an example of a woman who could have carried to term, at the cost of losing kidney function and having to go on dialysis for the rest of her life. That should never have to happen. That is why a health exception is necessary.
posted by amber_dale at 12:15 PM on April 26, 2007

Doohickie, the problem with that is that the most vociferous anti-life people (I categorically refuse to call them pro-life) are Christian. Exodus doesn't actually have any relevance--actually, none of the Torah (Old Testament) does. This is, of course, leaving aside the fact that they pick and choose where that applies. Point being, your argument is sound in one sense, but strictly speaking in a theological sense it's easily refuted, unless you're aiming it at Jews.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 12:15 PM on April 26, 2007

Exodus doesn't actually have any relevance--actually, none of the Torah (Old Testament) does.

While as a Christian I don't agree with that, I see your point about the picking and choosing. People with agendas simply ignore points like the one I made while using the Torah to make others to support their agenda.
posted by Doohickie at 12:46 PM on April 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Causing miscarriage (abortion) is NOT equal to murder.

Wasn't there a video posted here not too long ago where someone interviewed pro-life protestors and asked them what they wanted the legal penalty to be for abortion, and most of them couldn't think of anything particularly harsh?

I wouldn't be surprised the majority of pro-lifers would believe a financial penalty was a more appropriate punishment for abortion than stoning to death, and that's largely in line with that passage from Exodus, whatever other merits it may or may not have as a policy.

Exodus doesn't actually have any relevance--actually, none of the Torah (Old Testament) does.

From what I understand, the New Testament is supposed to supercede the Old in a more subtle way than simply tossing it out. But...

This is, of course, leaving aside the fact that they pick and choose where that applies.

Yeah. There are many Christians who are not subtle in their approach.
posted by weston at 12:50 PM on April 26, 2007

.
posted by davejay at 12:56 PM on April 26, 2007

FWIW if that had been me I can see my husband signing that paperwork very quickly (and he is staunchly prolife.)

I can also see myself really angry at him for doing so. What I would not do is see him as a sinner for signing it.

I am against abortion on demand. I see it as murder. If I were raped and were to become pregnant I personally would choose to carry that child to term.

This case was not abortion. This case had to do with saving that woman's life, period.What torques me about so much of the debate on these issues is that so often the baby is seen as something easily disposable and not of importance. Why cannot prochoice activists at least acknowledge that a baby's life has intrinsic value? Here the husband knows and recognizes what has been lost -hence the intense internal struggle re signing those papers. But how many cases of abortion are about saving the mom's life? Not that much of a percentage, I'd wager.

I want to puke when I hear about women who abort so they can "finish their education." A child has to die so she can graduate on time?

I'm sure a lot of people would have recommended that I abort at least two of my three children. They were born in a very short timespan (the last one when the first was two and a half) -I had very little money, and my personal circumstances were extremely stressful. (And yes, I was using birth control, which failed.) Life was incredibly tough there for a few years. But we all got through it.

One of those children had an unplanned pregnancy -she had been planning to go into the military but instead she chose to marry the father. Even tho her recruiter "suggested" she get an abortion. My daughter's life was not in danger. She was offended in the extreme that someone would think she would murder her child in order to keep from changing her plans.

What this whole case DOES illustrate is that it is next to impossible for legislation to differentiate one type of case from another. I would like to think that common sense could tell us that you don't kill a baby for convenience but that you also don't let a woman die just because she is pregnant. I have long since stopped expecting common sense to prevail from Washington or from ANY political action group. (Or for that matter, some Christian groups.)

Till then my principles remain-God is the Author of life, and God sees the mom's life as just as valuable as the child's. Babies are not Teh Evil.

And rare cases do not make Abortion On Demand desirable.
posted by konolia at 1:25 PM on April 26, 2007

Most of the pro-lifers I know, when faced with this choice, would probably opt to terminate a 9 week pregnancy to save the life of the mother.

Yeah, tadellin, except it would be illegal if the pro-lifers had their way, and they could end up in jail for doing what happened here. WTF?

I'm curious -- say the woman was not just 10 weeks along, but 7.25 months. She suffers the same problem -- unexplained hemorrhaging that is going to kill her, the baby is fine.

Is it now not illegal to save her life, if that dilation and extraction technique is the only way to do it?

Yup.

Pro-life moralizing is not an abstract or philosophical debate -- it fucks with people's lives on a very personal, very wrong level.

That's why the author lashes out at pro-lifers, and he has every right to do so there.
posted by teece at 1:28 PM on April 26, 2007

This case was not abortion.

That is complete nonsense, konolia#. It was abortion, just an abortion (some) pro-lifers say is OK. I understand what you are trying to say, yet that is a very dishonest way to frame it.

But when I see pro-lifers talk about or propose abortion laws, the life-or-death exception is rarely included. Indeed, we have just such a federal law on the books now, with NO HEALTH EXCEPTION at all.
posted by teece at 1:32 PM on April 26, 2007

So...there’s a problem with using birth control then?

I don’t know that the rage itself is inappropriate, but I think it’s misdirected. Many people who are pro-life are concerned for the life of the child. There are those, and they’ve been alluded to here, who place moral judgments on these kinds of situations and their objective is clearly something else. I don’t think it’s inappropriate to direct anger at them. Particularly because of the hypocritical nature of their arguments. Indeed, even a cursory examination of their methods reveal their goals are something other that reducing the need for abortion and the overall number of aborted children.

I think this particular piece illustrates the personal nature of the issue but it’s very narrow in it’s perspective.
We have here a married person, well educated, presumably well supported (in terms of resources, etc.) with at least some degree of health care.

By contrast there are people who, for example, abandon children to die in a garbage can somewhere. Or keep having abortions over and over.
I am not laying blame there.
But often the same stupid individuals who castigate people who have abortions are those who refuse to support systems, laws, etc. which would actually prevent that sort of thing from happening.

I don’t agree with the “anti-life” label, they are more appropriately called “anti-sex”

F’rinstance, it took some time to pass legislation in Illinois to designate safe zones where a woman could, without legal penalty or questions asked, leave a newborn (typically a fire station or some such - but most importantly manned so the newborn could get immediate health care).
One has to question - what was the opposition?
Similarly, there is opposition to teaching sexual health in schools, opposition to access to birth control, all sorts of things that reduce the need for abortion.
Which, to me, should be the bottom line whether one is pro-life or pro-choice. I don’t know of anyone who would argue that it’s better to have an abortion than it is to prevent a pregnancy in the first place.
There are individuals and groups who have agendas outside this goal and typically their focus is on sex.
I suspect, from the (albeit small relative to the national population) number of individuals I’ve spoken to with such opinions, this is more derived from an instilled neurosis than any religious rhetoric.
(Hence the material itself - religious, political, whatever, is largely irrelevant - as is internal consistency).
Certainly that can often be a byproduct of religious training, but speculation on that aside, the effects are fairly obvious.
And the differences between folks who want to save lives and the folks who want to keep the government out of their personal business is minimal compared to the social mores and social condemnation that makes abortion necessary in the first place.

Indeed, if adoption was universally seen as a healthy and viable option instead of some sort of sordid concession and pregnancy itself were lauded as bringing new life into the world no matter the circumstances I suspect abortions other than for health reasons would be extraordinarily rare.

As it is, many people do focus on the circumstances. And it is those people that both pro-life and pro-choice individuals should regard as the true force behind the needless death of the unborn.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:34 PM on April 26, 2007

That's just a very stupid idea, and it implies that the GOP is somehow disconnected in from their base in away that allows their internal politics to be completely disconnected from their external politics.

If the Republicans wanted to make abortion illegal, why didn't they? They had a Republican president, Republican majorities in the House and Senate, and a Republican-dominated Supreme Court. Large portions of their base are sincerely opposed to abortion, but the leadership won't actually outlaw it because they'd be losing a club to beat Democrats up with.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:39 PM on April 26, 2007

This case was not abortion. This case had to do with saving that woman's life, period.

That seems like an odd statement. I think you can make a distinction between abortion by purpose, but it seems pretty clear to me that there was an aborted pregnancy in this story.

What torques me about so much of the debate on these issues is that so often the baby is seen as something easily disposable and not of importance.

One of the things that I think is worth highlighting about the linked narrative, though, is that it's not that way at all, even though it's by and large written with a pro-choice bent.
posted by weston at 1:41 PM on April 26, 2007

I am against abortion on demand. I see it as murder. If I were raped and were to become pregnant I personally would choose to carry that child to term.

Good for you. Except that it's not murder, and sorry, but you don't get to force your personal choices on anyone else. I really would like to see you tell a pregnant rape victim that you think she should carry her rapist's child. No, really. I'll get my popcorn, because lady, you would get your ass kicked from here into next week. Suggesting that a rape victim should bear her rapist's child is so callous, so cruel, so unmitigatedly evil that it makes me sick to my stomach anytime anyone says it.

I want to puke when I hear about women who abort so they can "finish their education." A child has to die so she can graduate on time?

While I will agree that such a case would argue for better use of, and education around, birth control, again, your choices and your opinions don't enter into it. It is not your body. Hands off.

Oh, and it's not killing a child. A bunch of cells is no more a child than an egg is a chicken, or caviar is a sturgeon, or a blank canvas with some paint sitting next to it is a piece of art.

She was offended in the extreme that someone would think she would murder her child in order to keep from changing her plans.

I'm offended in the extreme that you would use the words 'murder' and 'child' in that sentence, when neither is accurate.

Of course abortion on demand is not a desirable outcome. No woman I know who has had an abortion would consider it a positive experience. But it's a necessary thing that must be made freely and non-judgementally accessible for all women everywhere.

Why?

Because it is not your body, it is not your life, and you have no right whatsoever to make that choice for someone else, much less when you are basing that choice on a multiply-mistranslated millenia-old document that has zero relevance to modern life.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 1:41 PM on April 26, 2007 [5 favorites]

The defense of marriage amendment is another club, brought up during an election year and forgotten after the election.
posted by kirkaracha at 1:45 PM on April 26, 2007

I'm offended in the extreme that you would use the words 'murder' and 'child' in that sentence, when neither is accurate

I'm sorry you feel offended. But if you would like, I can email you a link to my flickr account and/or my MySpace, where you will find some really cute pictures of my grandson.

The one whose life that recruiter so casually suggested it would be okay to abort.
posted by konolia at 1:49 PM on April 26, 2007

I'm offended in the extreme that you would use the words 'murder' and 'child' in that sentence, when neither is accurate

Oh, and I forgot to mention-the words "murder" and "baby" are the words my daughter used when she described to me her encounter with the recruiter. Words she used while she was in her first trimester.
posted by konolia at 1:54 PM on April 26, 2007

What this whole case DOES illustrate is that it is next to impossible for legislation to differentiate one type of case from another.

So the trick is to not legislate any of it. It's almost too simple.
posted by chunking express at 1:56 PM on April 26, 2007

“Oh, and it's not killing a child. A bunch of cells is no more a child than an egg is a chicken, or caviar is a sturgeon, or a blank canvas with some paint sitting next to it is a piece of art.”

I think missed here was the emotional impact of the decision as to whether to abort the child or not. He did not simply blow the fetus off as irrelevent, but was struck by the full gravity of the decision.
A decision which, I fully agree, should not be made by the government.

(In part because I don’t think the “bunch of cells” argument is relevent. Too subjective. My wife and I struggled to get our first child. If we had lost the baby at 9 weeks we would have been devastated. To us that was “baby.” I grant the argument that one doesn’t treat a 9 week old fetus like a 17 month old baby - but saying “no one” feels that way is simply self-serving. That’s the same kind of subjective assertion moralists make to make someone else not have an abortion. Great, he feels a certain way about it. That’s him. But don’t tell me and my wife what we saw when we were looking at the ultrasound.)
posted by Smedleyman at 2:04 PM on April 26, 2007

... debate landmine indeed, although I probably shoulda known this was comin' ...
posted by WCityMike at 2:31 PM on April 26, 2007

I'm sorry you feel offended. But if you would like, I can email you a link to my flickr account and/or my MySpace, where you will find some really cute pictures of my grandson.

Who is now a child. Who was not a child when that suggestion, gauche and insensitive as it may have been, was made.

Oh, and I forgot to mention-the words "murder" and "baby" are the words my daughter used when she described to me her encounter with the recruiter. Words she used while she was in her first trimester.

When she used them is immaterial. They were still inaccurate.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 2:32 PM on April 26, 2007

But if you would like, I can email you a link to my flickr account and/or my MySpace, where you will find some really cute pictures of my grandson.

Hey! While we're at it, I can send you pictures of my husband and my house and all of the great opportunities and wonderful life I've been able to provide myself because I chose not to have a baby at nineteen!

And then, we can try to emotionally manipulate everyone into obeying our will about every little thing! Gosh, life sure would be swell if everyone did what I thought was best.
posted by mckenney at 2:42 PM on April 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Had a rant about this with my carpool-mate on the way to work yesterday morning.

Apparently, the guv'mnt would like me to believe that I am too stupid and/or naive to "understand" what is going to happen to me and my "baby" during an abortion. Therefore, they will teach me about it by making me look at ultrasounds before I am allowed to have an abortion.

So, I'm too dumb to understand what an abortion entails, but smart enought to carry a child to term, and then, presumably, raise it to adulthood. (Of course, if they'd bothered to teach me some actual sex education in school, I might not be in this position.)

And I'm waiting for the day when someone - an elected politician, the leader of an anti-choice group - actually has the balls to follow their rhetoric to its logical conclusion: abortion is murder, and therefore women who have abortions should be tried and put in jail. After all, if the mother had hired someone to off her 5-year-old, she'd go to jail, right?

And konoloia: more power to you for carrying the hypothetical child of a rapist to term. That is your choice. I don't know that it would be mine (probably not). It's my body. Hands off.
posted by rtha at 2:48 PM on April 26, 2007

"This case was not abortion. This case had to do with saving that woman's life, period."

Oh, konolia, come on. You're entitled to your position on abortion, but you are not entitled to redefine medical terms in order to make yourself feel better about supporting this particular abortion.

Just because you happen to believe this abortion was justified by the circumstances does not mean that it magically becomes some kind of "non-abortion" abortion. The facts of the story are that (a) an abortion occured and (b) its purpose was to save the mother's life. These two points are not mutually exclusive.
posted by lalex at 3:15 PM on April 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

“...the leader of an anti-choice group - actually has the balls to follow their rhetoric to its logical conclusion: abortion is murder...”

Yeah, that’s exactly the problem with keeping all of this subjective and hazy and keeping the humanitarian goals obfuscated with political in-fighting. Of course they don’t want it settled, of course it’s all hyperbole and overstatement - the whole issue has been co-opted by political special interest groups with - it seems - the objective of no realistic or practical legal guidance on the issue. (”We have always been at war with Eurasia” - similar ends, one can be endlessly victorious with no actual closure)

I don’t know why I have to accept that a fetus is somehow a useless organism or only a potential (while ignoring that potential) and thus deservingly devoid of emotional attachment in order to support a woman’s right to chose.
Nor do I know why should I have to accept that abortion is murder in order to recognize that an abortion is a decision to be taken with the utmost seriousness.
The goal of keeping the government out of family decisions and individual medical decisions and the goal of keeping the number of abortions as low as possible are NOT mutually exclusive goals.

(The social/moral/ethical struggle - whole other thing. But I’m willing to accept that there are things I don’t know.)
posted by Smedleyman at 3:17 PM on April 26, 2007

Hey! While we're at it, I can send you pictures of my husband and my house and all of the great opportunities and wonderful life I've been able to provide myself because I chose not to have a baby at nineteen

And I can show you a picture of my mom and dad's really nice expensive house and all their property, and stuff, which they managed to amass even though they had ME at nineteen and twenty, respectively.

Oh, and my daughter had my grandson at age 19. Her life most assuredly is not ruined nor is it over.


Indeed, if adoption was universally seen as a healthy and viable option instead of some sort of sordid concession and pregnancy itself were lauded as bringing new life into the world no matter the circumstances I suspect abortions other than for health reasons would be extraordinarily rare.

This is the best comment in this thread, hands down.
posted by konolia at 3:59 PM on April 26, 2007

My rant notwithstanding, I agree with you, Smedleyman. Many many years ago, in college, I worked the breakfast shift with a woman who was my political polar opposite. But food service makes for odd friendships.

Anyway, we had long conversations about all kinds of things - religion (she was born-again) and abortion chief among them. Eventually, she agreed that perhaps abortion was something best decided by the woman and her partner (if he was around) and her doctor, and not by the government. I agreed that an abortion is not the same as clipping your nails (not that I ever actually thought that, but that was the box she'd put me in). We got there by talking to each other as people, not as representatives of Those People, if you know what I mean. I don't remember her name anymore, but I still think of her, and those conversations. I don't hold out great hope for a national conversation on that scale...but maybe a teeny tiny hope.
posted by rtha at 4:00 PM on April 26, 2007

I believe that konolia is perfectly earnest, but I believe her party and her political/religious constituency aren't at all as serious as she is. I don't think they actually give a flying crap about "the sanctity of life" and all that, and that if they actually achieved their aims, they would gobsmacked and profoundly horrified to find lots and lots of new births coming from people whose color/income/ethnicity is not at all what they would like to see expanding, while the number of richer/whiter births would remain relatively stable.

Because I wouldn't have my rapist's baby, and the fact that I'm white, not poor, and have lots of friends, some of whom are doctors and nurses, would mean that I wouldn't have to, even if Konolia got to make the laws... Same as it ever was. No affluent person would really have to deal with this crazy lawmaking, because how much do the local police really want to be checking out every d&c that ever occurs in every gynecologist's office? So, as usual, only the youngest, poorest, most neglected, most abandoned women would be dealing with the consequences of an overturn of Roe vs. Wade, and I have no doubt that given a generation or two, the "Right" would be screeching for mandatory abortions unless certain circumstances were met , adopting a totally different, yet equally ridiculous, shortsighted, impractical, inhumane position that, again, the affluent would manage to avoid, and that the poorer, younger and more powerless would have to suffer.

Because it's really all about power and control. The people who want to wield it the most don't actually care so much about the minor details of faith/law/policy/humanity - which are all easily shifted to suit the authoritarian psyche.
posted by taz at 4:30 PM on April 26, 2007 [2 favorites]

This, from the middle of the blogger's piece, bears repeating: The baby was fine until the end. I wondered if that would have meant they'd force us to let my wife bleed until almost death before they'd let us abort, because well, if she's not near death, then it is just a 'health' exception, and we can't have that!

I haven't finished reading the thread following his blog, but I haven't seen any of the anti-choicers address it so far (aside from This is so rare it doesn't count against those hordes of carefree sluts casually getting abortions like they were haircuts). Even after another commenter's reiteration:
if abortion law is passed that limits abortions to cases where the mother's life is in danger then women like DDB's wife will die in ER's while waiting to pass the threshold between "normal bleeding" and "life threatening". Who will determine how much risk to take?

For example: facing a patient whose situation rapid escalates from "risk to health" to "risk to life", when saving her life would involve a D&E versus the now-banned D&X - how many doctors would, when "No exception was made for protecting a woman's health; only a threat to a woman's life would excuse the use of the procedure. Absent that excuse, a physician who knowingly performs an intact dilation and extraction (D&X) is subject to 2 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and monetary damages for psychological injury to the husband or parents of the pregnant woman"?
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 6:06 PM on April 26, 2007

Here's the abortion we should be discussing in light of the Supreme Court decision. Most "partial birth" abortions are performed on desperately wanted but doomed pregnancies-- like the one in the link but later in pregnancy.

As doctors who deal with the vague standards of legislators about what is criminal and what isn't when it comes to opioids have found out
(warning: self link), when you criminalize part of medicine rather than allowing doctors to make medical decisions, you wind up with frightened doctors and maltreated patients.

If a doctor has to worry about going to jail when he performs a particular procedure or prescribes a drug, the easiest thing to do is simply not do anything like it. So doctors are now afraid to prescribe the best painkillers in medicine-- and soon few will perform *any* late term abortions.

And women's health, fertility and lives will be at great risk-- just as pain patients are now compromised by what is essentially the criminalization of malpractice. The New England Journal of Medicine has accused the court of practicing medicine without a license for this decision.
posted by Maias at 6:14 PM on April 26, 2007

I'm sorry, I didn't realized adoption was seen as some kind of "sordid concession". Silly me - I kind of view it as a noble and beautiful thing, but that's just me.

Abortion is pretty simple to me:
- don't force you to have one, you don't force me to have one
BUT it's available if you need it and it's the right circumstances for your situation. This is an issue of reproductive freedom - the right to control one's sexuality. Basic human right.
- if you don't have a uterus, then please and thank you, keep your laws off my body unless and until that day when you deliver a baby through an equivalent orifice. This is an issue of letting woman exercise control over their bodies. Again, no brainer.

I can't believe it's 2007 and people still don't understand this. Religious people have a right to object to abortion or anything else they choose - the operative word being 'choice'. It's about choice. Take away my right to choose what's best for me, and you negate me and my right to exercise free will.

WCityMike, thanks for posting this. Incredibly evocative, well written, and worth sharing.
posted by rmm at 7:35 PM on April 26, 2007 [1 favorite]

Here's the abortion we should be discussing in light of the Supreme Court decision.

Seconded. Stories like this are what make Kennedy's opinion is so insulting.
posted by homunculus at 8:23 PM on April 26, 2007

konolia- You make me sick.
posted by bshort at 8:24 PM on April 26, 2007

@Doohickie

In Acts, it was Pharisees who made noise that Gentiles ought to be circumcised and follow the laws of Moses. Peter & Paul rejected the idea.

And the people of our time calling themselves christian who insist on cutting off part of their children's dicks and imposing some arbitrary subset of the laws of Moses on those around them are nothing more than pharisees.

If there really is a Christ and he ever gets around to returning, he'll be similarly disposed towards your lot as he was to the original pharisees.
posted by lastobelus at 8:52 PM on April 26, 2007

Uh, lastobelus, I'm kinda confused as to what you're getting at there.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:22 PM on April 26, 2007

I tried to post this six hours ago at work, but then my boss came in with busywork, so Smedlyman beat me to half of my point, but here goes anyway...

As Tadellin says, most pro-lifers he knows would be okay with this choice in this scenario. Same with, well, all pro-lifers that I know, and this comes from growing up religiously in Texas and Oklahoma.

If you asked them about why, they'd say that it's a tough call, but that the baby was going to die anyway, and the life of the mother was at stake, and that makes it all pretty slear-cut, etc etc.

If you got into their innermost thoughts, fears, and whatnot, however, you'd find that it isn't the circumstances of the abortion that make it permissible, however, but rather the circumstances of the conception. This was a married couple who'd had a child already (I think, at least - the blog is a little unclear on the timeline) so their sex wasn't a sin that required consequences such as an immutable pregnancy.

There are some pro-lifers - I'd count Konolia among them, as well as Alan Keyes - who I disagree with, but I at least respect based on the idea that their priorities and rationales are one-and-the-same, e.g. this is a child, at any stage of development, and it isn't worth it for any reason to kill that developing child. I can't argue - at least not in any effective way - with this belief. If you believe it, then you believe that abortion is infanticide, and nothing is going to make any of us agree with infanticide. I disagree with konolia, but I respect her opinion on the matter, and her sincerity in expressing it. So good on her.

Almost all pro-lifers I've known in my life, however, are concerned only about the fact that sex is wrong. I don't have any data on what percentage of pro-lifers contribute to AIDS charities vs. percentage of pro-choicers, but I can guess at what kind of discrepancy we'd see. Sex is wrong and must carry consequences. Particularly for young women. How many pro-lifers do we imagine are educating children about preventative forms of birth control, as opposed to pro-choicers? AGain, I think we'd find the answers disturbing.

Most pro-lifers don't care about the life of the child any more than pro-choicers do. I.e., they understand what abortion entails, and that it isn't pretty, to say the least. Here's a clue, nobody likes abortions. Nobody waves they're freak-flag for more abortions. Nobody - not even Steven Levitt - thinks that more abortions are a good idea. When you look at reality, though, I think you'll find that the pro-choice crowd is doing more to try to make them a lot rarer than the pro-life crowd.

And what it comes back to, again, is sex. The nightmare scenario for most pro-lifers isn't a generation of unborn Shakespeares and Einsteins, but a generation of daughters fornicating without consequences. The people calling for these young women not to be able to terminate their pregnancies are by-and-large the same people who wouldn't want those young women to have had access to condoms beforehand. It's not about the fetus. It's about sex, and the fact that sex - outside of prescribed guidelines - needs to have consequences.

I've lived in NYC for the last eight years, but I lived in Houston, TX and Bartlesville, OK before that. NYCers get a good deal of well-deserved flak on this forum, as well as others, for believing themselves to be smarter and more sophisticated than the red-staters in between the coasts. I'm a liberal, but I've spent most of my life in red states, and I hope I know better than that. One big truth, however, is that coming to the East Coat was a massive breath of fresh air as far as the dialog on sex and sexuality is concerned.

In modern American Christianity, there's no greater sin than sex. Nothing at all. Again, this applies almost exclusively to women, and there's nothing you can do about it once it's out there. Lying, stealing, it's all forgiven in Jesus's grace. I bet if a convicted rapist had walked into my youth group in high school, asking to hear the word of the Lord, he would've been greeted with open arms and praises to the almighty. But teenage mothers (and I saw a bit of this) were tainted. They were damned. There was nothing you could do about it. And not just the pregnant ones. I once sat through a meeting between the youth group leader and a couple who were some friends of mine, where the youth minister was trying to bully a confession out of them that they were now involved in a sexual relationship. If they'd given it, they'd be essentially expelled from any part of the youth group. I was asked to show up to help mediate. I left the church after that.

In all of this country, you will never find a group more sexually obsessed than the religious right. I'm close friends with people who work at erotica web-sites, and they could care less. You spend enough time with the religious right, though, and you'll find that every conversation comes back to it, and what are we gonna do about it?

Nothing much, as it turns out. Trying to legislate abstinence and ban abortion are the last stands, the final battles in the only part of the culture war that truly matters to them anymore. It's why Clinton got impeached over a blowjob while Bush gets a pass on, well, everything. It's why our key election issues are so skewed away from anything that really matters. Stopping sex is the real neo-conservative domestic issue, and then the rest of their idealized version of the fifties will follow.

If you ask a pro-choicer whether they'd approve of abortion in order to choose the gender of a child, most would say "no." If you pressed them as to why, they'd admit that it's not a morality-free choice, and that it's a situation envisioned for women (and families) to have control over the medical and economic stations of their lives, but not a good one. Similarly, if you asked a pro-choicer about the situation above, or whether they'd approve of abortion in the case of rape or incest, most would say "yes," but if pressed as to their real reasoning, they'd have to admit that the life of the fetus is secondary to the choices made by the mother. The rape victim didn't consent, so it's okay for her to abort. This is inconsistent with LIFE being the primary purpose of the goal. It is, however, perfectly consistent with punishing young women for having sex.

If I were in a position of lawmaking power (which I'm not, yet) and truly wanted to bring down the number of abortions nationwide (which I do. It should be legal, for sure, but that doesn't mean it should be common) then my solution would be simple. Mandate a front-of-the-line status for adopting couples who opt into open adoptions (e.g. what Dan Savage did, where the mother of the child still gets to regularly visit the child and be a part of his life) and offer tax-credits to young, unmarried mothers who give their newborn children up for adoption. And, of course, I'd offer free condoms from middle-school on and teach children everything they need to know about safe sex before push comes to shove.

And though there's no way to legislate it, in my ideal world that sex ed would be done without any bias towards or against the act itself. Let the teens decide, but let them also not feel like they have to sneak around so much that they can't be seen buying protection and have to just act like things happened "by accident."

That is all.
posted by Navelgazer at 11:56 PM on April 26, 2007 [3 favorites]

The people calling for these young women not to be able to terminate their pregnancies are by-and-large the same people who wouldn't want those young women to have had access to condoms beforehand. It's not about the fetus. It's about sex, and the fact that sex - outside of prescribed guidelines - needs to have consequences.

Where are you finding these people? Seriously-NONE of the prolifers I know are like this.
posted by konolia at 5:28 AM on April 27, 2007

Sorry, highlighted the wrong quote.

I'm not interested in promoting condoms to unmarried people but that is a separate topic in my mind to the prolife stuff. I know that nonchristians are not going to be living the way that Christians are expected to live, so whether or not they use birth control is a nonissue to me. We expect abstinence from our young people-but we don't see babies as a punishment, and we don't think babies should be killed. They aren't a virus, they aren't the devil, they are babies. Babies are NOT BAD.
posted by konolia at 5:32 AM on April 27, 2007

Thank you Navelgazer - that was truly excellent. konolia, maybe he's refering to the movement as a whole, as opposed individiaul prolifers. And the movement is lead by some who would rather control other people's bodies through legislating their own particular brand of morality - rather than having those people choose to have dominion over their bodies.
posted by rmm at 7:51 AM on April 27, 2007

And what it comes back to, again, is sex. The nightmare scenario for most pro-lifers isn't a generation of unborn Shakespeares and Einsteins, but a generation of daughters fornicating without consequences. The people calling for these young women not to be able to terminate their pregnancies are by-and-large the same people who wouldn't want those young women to have had access to condoms beforehand. It's not about the fetus. It's about sex, and the fact that sex - outside of prescribed guidelines - needs to have consequences.

Well said! To follow up, what is the appropriate punishment for those "knocked-up loose whores" without legal abortion? Answer: Coat-hanger abortions that are self-performed or performed by back-alley doctors. If abortion is criminalized, as it was before, women will once again be forced to resort to the most dangerous possible forms of abortion. You listening to me, pro-lifers? That generally means death for the mother AND the infant.

The reality is that the moniker "pro-life" is a in direct contradiction to the real outcomes of the legislation you wish to see enacted.

Also, explain to me why pro-lifers or should I better say (if I may borrow this particularly astute moniker) "anti-lifers" always decorate your picket signs, offices, interviews with the most heinous images possible? Every interview I have ever seen with an anti-lifer includes some sort of ghastly image of death. Your interest is not with life, but with fear and death.

Life is not sacred. Accept the truth and save yourselves (and us) the ghastly images, the clinic bombings, the self-righteous speeches. Believing that God has some personal interest in human beings is purely narcissistic and only exists because people need to feel special and that their lives have meaning, yet they have not been able to generate it for themselves (only way out of this cycle, sorry). This sort of belief grants no peace. Did Ghandi or even Jesus scream and bomb and carry around horrific images? No. Ghandi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." Neither mentioned attempting to legislate your preferences onto other people's bodies.
posted by melangell at 10:29 AM on April 27, 2007

“I didn't realized adoption was seen as some kind of "sordid concession". Silly me - I kind of view it as a noble and beautiful thing, but that's just me.” - posted by rmm

You are indeed silly and naive if you honestly don’t think being a young unwed mother does not carry with it a social stigma. Carrying a child to term is indeed a noble and beautiful thing. That fact has nothing to do with the perceptions.
There are many people who while they espouse the preservation of life - are more focused on the prevention of sex. And adoption, while getting lip service, still carries with it a sort of shamefulness of illicit sex in society that I’ve asserted it shouldn’t if we are truly concerned with the unborn.
(I didn’t make it explicit, but it shouldn’t anyway. Better informed well supported kids will tend to make healthier choices for themselves)
Recognition of that environment of shame is not advocacy of it. Indeed, I’ve directly attacked it and called for it’s destruction.
Either you misunderstood that point or you were being disingenuous. I won’t speculate on motives for the latter.
But I do agree with everything Navelgazer said. Free condoms, etc.
Navelgazer asserted he and I had essentially the same point, you disagree with me, but laud him.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:33 PM on April 27, 2007

And of course in some cases it’s a bit more than just social pressure.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:41 PM on April 27, 2007

We expect abstinence from our young people-but we don't see babies as a punishment, and we don't think babies should be killed. They aren't a virus, they aren't the devil, they are babies. Babies are NOT BAD.
posted by konolia at 8:32 AM on April 27

Uh. I'm not really aware of any people who are pro-choice who view pregnancy as a punishment or babies as bad. Nice strawman, though.

And once again, stop attempting to redefine words. Abortion, before a fetus is viable outside the womb, is not 'killing' a 'baby'. Neither of those terms is accurate. Then again, you've proven yourself to be too intellectually dishonest over and over and over again to actually use the brain that God gave you.

And, sorry, but expecting abstinence from teenagers? You have got to be fucking kidding me. Even you can't be that fucking deluded. Do you tell your kids it's a sin to masturbate, too?
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:12 PM on April 27, 2007

States see new fights on abortion: On Monday the justices ordered appellate courts in St. Louis and Richmond, Va., to reconsider Missouri's and Virginia's laws in light of last week's ruling on the federal statute. . .
a doctor convicted under the Missouri ban would be guilty of "infanticide," a Class A felony punishable by up to life imprisonment.

konolia: Here the husband knows and recognizes what has been lost -hence the intense internal struggle re signing those papers.

You've got statistics on the vast numbers of women who casually, cheerfully get abortions versus the teeny numbers of those who agonize and shed tears over the decision, do you?

But how many cases of abortion are about saving the mom's life? Not that much of a percentage, I'd wager. . . . And rare cases do not make Abortion On Demand desirable.

So just to confirm, konolia - in your view, will the mere health and fertility of women like this and these be regrettable but unavoidable sacrifices, under more restrictive and punitive state bans aimed at the greater good of "saving babies" (AKA ensuring that millions of babies - far more than there are adoptive parents - are born to women who don't want or can't financially support them)? I really want to know. This is an acceptable tradeoff in your view?
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 8:26 PM on April 27, 2007

If there really is a Christ and he ever gets around to returning, he'll be similarly disposed towards your lot as he was to the original pharisees.
posted by lastobelus at 10:52 PM

Thanks. I'll bear that in mind. :/

But you kind of missed what I was saying. I said that Exodus has relevance in the argument at hand, not that I personally follow all the laws therein.

Even though Christianity sees belief in Christ as superseding a need to strictly follow the OT law, many Christian beliefs arise from OT passages, and the OT is still considered to be Holy Scripture- the Word of God.

So, let's go back to the beginning....

Anti-abortionists who happen to be Christian are against abortion because they equate it with murder.

I simply cited two passages from the same chapter of the Bible that shows that the Bible does not consider murder and abortion to be equivalent offenses.

I never said anything about how I felt about the punishments cited. The only reason the punishments are at all important is that they set a biblical precedent, if you will, that negates the Christian support of abortion. They say abortion should be illegal because it is equivalent to murder, but the Bible clearly makes a distinction between the two, as evidenced by the fact that they have different punishments in the OT.
posted by Doohickie at 9:36 PM on April 27, 2007

The terrorism that dare not speak its name
posted by homunculus at 10:48 PM on April 27, 2007

So just to confirm, konolia - in your view, will the mere health and fertility of women like this and these be regrettable but unavoidable sacrifices, under more restrictive and punitive state bans aimed at the greater good of "saving babies" (AKA ensuring that millions of babies - far more than there are adoptive parents - are born to women who don't want or can't financially support them)? I really want to know. This is an acceptable tradeoff in your view?

My view starts off in the rock-solid knowledge that an unborn child is a living being. You do as much as you can to ensure that both mom and baby are as protected and safe as possible, period. You work out any ethical dilemmas from THAT platform. NOT from the platform that the baby is a parasite, or an enemy.

Go ahead, read the Planned Parent literature, or stuff like it. It positively reeks of the attitude that babies are dangerous, babies will rob one of happiness, babies are disposable or that babies should be treated as designer luxuries.

It is that attitude that makes discussions like this one so painful to me. And now that I have my grandson, and think just how many people would have chosen to suck that little soul down a sink in similar circumstances....

A decent society does not murder its weak ones.
posted by konolia at 6:19 AM on April 28, 2007

Ok konolia - It's Planned Parenthood, for starters. Get the name right. Also check out their web site and literature before you slag them - if you had, you'd see they mentioned adoption as a viable alternative, and none of them have the condescending tone you see them having ("babies will rob one of happiness" - where on earth are you getting this?). They are a public health care provider who provide health services to women, some of which includes abortion, but also pap smears, birth control, and other reproductive and women's health issues. There is NO talk of babies being parasites or enemies.

While I respect your right to your opinion, my respect goes out the door when your opinion is coloured by such a misinformed opinion of the other side.
posted by rmm at 7:07 AM on April 28, 2007

NOT from the platform that the baby is a parasite, or an enemy.

Nice strawman, but nobody (except for the most rabid of the childfree camp, and they are as easily and rightly discounted as you fundamentalists would be if you didn't have so much power) has said anything like that in this thread. Stop being so intellectually dishonest, if in fact you are capable of doing so.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:35 AM on April 28, 2007

"It positively reeks of the attitude that babies are dangerous, babies will rob one of happiness, babies are disposable or that babies should be treated as designer luxuries."

I have to disagree with you here. I've read plenty of this and I haven't seen anything like that.
I will add that although I agree that an unborn child is a living being I don't think the position of where a group of cells becomes a baby is objectively defensible (from either side).
My belief is that it's a baby from conception simply because I recognize the potential. It's a potential human. That it may never become one is, to me, irrelevent to the fact that it is the ultimate goal of the biological process to produce a human.(but that's belief not fact)
Denial of that potential being's place in humanity is (IMHO) an extraordinarially dangerous thing. A similar form of argument could be used in a number of unintended ways.

That said, I think the reverse is also true. The government has no right to make decisions concerning my biology for me.
However it does have the responsibility to protect it's citizens (even if their unborn). On that level, I'd call it a tie.

What breaks the tie (for me) is the fundimental principle that liberty is more important than life. If my mother is in pain and dying and she wants to end her life I don't believe the government has the right to restrict her liberty to do that. She's responsible for her life therefore she must have power over it.
The government cannot have power over her life because it is not - ultimately - responsible for her in the way she must be. Nor can it be, if it comes to it, as responsible as I can be. As I love my mother and know her better than anyone outside the family I am the best possible proxy to make a decision for her.
The government has no obligation, certainly no emotional attatchment - which assures it will act in her best interest which can only be determined by her.

Similarly a woman must have the right to abort a child because only she can determine her best interests and the best interests of what is essentially a part of her.

A baby might indeed have better odds of survival if the government usurped that right. Life is often used as the legitimization of state power.
But under no circumstances can the state ever truly have the power to determine in all specific instances what any individuals' best interests are.
That includes bearing a child.
There should never be a law which constrains someone to bear a life.
And that recognizes the necessity to place the right to liberty before the right to life.
Sometimes that's a terrible cost, but either we bear it, or we live our lives subject to decisions made by people thousands of miles away who know nothing about our individual situations.
There's no law or indeed no one living who can judge what's right for every person in every situation. The only person who can do that is that individual themselves or the best possible proxy. The government is the proxy of last resort, not the best possible.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:06 PM on April 28, 2007

The Supreme Court's Split Decision to Uphold the Federal "Partial-Birth Abortion" Ban: Why, Despite the Court's Disclaimers, It Will Be Hugely Influential
posted by homunculus at 6:23 PM on April 30, 2007