Ross Douthat is a Religionist Poet Quoting Hack
Posted: January 3, 2011 Filed under: Reproductive Rights, The Media SUCKS, Violence against women, Women's Rights | Tags: professional idiot, Ross Douthart 26 CommentsIf ever there was a need for some genetically manipulated critter requiring maudlin, self-serving millennial look-at-me-effete-snob-and-intellectual-dilettante-that-I am qualities and the actual sense of an eggplant, Ross Douthat could provide the DNA. I had to hold down a little bit of throw-up in the back of my throat while reading THIS spurious drivel. From under WHICH nasty critter-filled rock does the NYT find its op ed writers?
This is the paradox of America’s unborn. No life is so desperately sought after, so hungrily desired, so carefully nurtured. And yet no life is so legally unprotected, and so frequently destroyed.
How many stupid diatribes do we have to endure from people that confuse scrambled eggs with fried chicken in the name of a mythological angry sky god before we move on to the living breathing BABIES that are treated abominably in this country?
Prior to his own personal religionist conclusion, he dribbles this:
Some of this shift reflects the growing acceptance of single parenting. But some of it reflects the impact of Roe v. Wade. Since 1973, countless lives that might have been welcomed into families like Thernstrom’s — which looked into adoption, and gave it up as hopeless — have been cut short in utero instead.
And lives are what they are. On the MTV special, the people around Durham swaddle abortion in euphemism. The being inside her is just “pregnancy tissue.” After the abortion, she recalls being warned not to humanize it: “If you think of it like [a person], you’re going to make yourself depressed.” Instead, “think of it as what it is: nothing but a little ball of cells.”
He needs to look at the anti-abortion ‘swaddling’ in his own pathetic euphemisms before he gets all 3rd century on any one that actually CAN get pregnant. Let me just clear this one up for him.
THIS is a fertilized egg e.g. clump of cells e.g. pregnancy tissue
This is a new born baby needing food, shelter, clothing, education and healthy mother
It takes around nine months of gestation to get from picture on the left to the picture on the right. Picture on the right shows a living, breathing human being. At some point during the third trimester, the protohuman might become something that can be sustained on its own. It may live. It may eventually breathe. There’s a lot of stuff before that picture, however. A few fluttering heartbeats do not make a sentient human being. A few little buds that may become arms or hands do not make up a fully sentient, breathing human being. It is not up to you to figure out when it becomes a sentient being for every one, Ross. Science–at this point–can’t even do it. Science is the germane thing here for law; not your personal mythology.
But, more importantly, let’s keep this in mind:
One in four children are on food stamps in this country.
There is limited access to prenatal care in this country. Our rates for infant mortality are comparable to third world countries because access to prenatal care is restricted.
While extraordinary progress has been made in the last half century in infant survival and health, the decline in infant mortality rates in the United States has not kept up with progress in other industrialized countries. According to the most recent data from UNICEF, the U.S. infant mortality rate ranked 27th among 30 industrialized countries. In fact, in 2002 our nation’s infant mortality rate rose for the first time in more than 40 years; after declines in 2003 and 2004, the rate rose again in 2005, then declined again in 2006.
There are more than 8 million uninsured children in the United States. Millions more are underinsured. As a result, millions of children lack timely access to comprehensive health and mental health services, and must delay or forgo preventive care and treatment due to cost or other barriers.
- Uninsured children are 10 times more likely than insured children to have unmet medical needs, such as untreated asthma, diabetes or obesity, and are 5 times as likely as an insured child to go more than 2 years without seeing a doctor. Regular health screenings help doctors identify and treat problems preventively and are crucial to a child’s healthy development.An estimated two-thirds of children and youth with mental health needs are not getting the help they need. In fact, unmet need is as high today as it was 20 years ago.
- Uninsured children are more than 4 times as likely as an insured child to have an unmet dental health need. In 2000, children missed more than 51 million hours of school because of dental-related illness.
- Uninsured children are more likely than insured children to perform poorly in school; in contrast, enrolling children in health coverage has been associated with greatly improved school performance.
- Uninsurance disproportionately affects minority children. While 1 in 14 White children is uninsured, the statistic jumps to nearly 1 in 9 for Black children and 1 in 5 for Latino children.
Hell, we can’t even vaccinate our living, breathing, children.
Despite these improvements, one out of four Black two year olds—and one out of five Latino two year olds—have not been fully immunized.
Now, can we talk about access to Birth Control, sex education and Family planning that very might well prevent the little MTV “mishaps’ about which your sanctimonious white male ass is in such a bunchy about?
•Twenty-one states and the District of Columbia explicitly allow all minors to consent to contraceptive services without a parent’s involvement (as of January 2010). Two states (Texas and Utah) require parental consent for contraceptive services in state-funded family planning programs.[5]
•Ninety percent of publicly funded family planning clinics counsel clients younger than 18 about abstinence and the importance of communicating with parents about sex.[6]
•Sixty percent of teens younger than 18 who use a clinic for sexual health services say their parents know they are there.[7]
•Among those whose parents do not know, 70% would not use the clinic to obtain prescription contraceptives if the law required that their parents be notified.[7]
•One in five teens whose parents do not know they obtain contraceptive services would continue to have sex but would either rely on withdrawal or not use any contraceptives if the law required that their parents be notified of their visit.[7]
•Only 1% of all minor adolescents who use sexual health services indicate that their only reaction to a law requiring their parents’ involvement in obtaining prescription contraceptives would be to stop having sex.[7]
•Teens are waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. Some 13% of never-married females and 15% of never-married males aged 15–19 in 2002 had had sex before age 15, compared with 19% and 21%, respectively, in 1995.[1]
•The majority (59%) of sexually experienced teen females had a first sexual partner who was 1–3 years their senior. Only 8% had first partners who were six or more years older.[1]
•More than three-quarters of teen females report that their first sexual experience was with a steady boyfriend, a fiancé, a husband or a cohabiting partner.[1]
I would now like to suggest that Ross Douthart is an irrelevant voice on the topic and he should STFU.
(Recent unplanned-pregnancy movies like “Juno” and “Knocked Up” made abortion seem not only unnecessary but repellent.)
Here’s hoping his angry sky god forces him to a hell realm where he’s perpetually dealing with his own pregnancy under all the worst conditions imaginable. I would gladly offer up the few I had as an example trying to bring youngest daughter to term. Yes. Abortion can be THE moral choice. Also, it’s none of Douthart’s damned business under ANY circumstances. Maybe that’s his issue and that’s why he thinks it’s a paradox of all things.
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Adoption? If he was really sincere about adoption, surely he must be aware that there are over a hundred thousand children waiting to be adopted. What Douthat means when he talks about adoption is providing is lily-white babies to lily-white parents.
Source:
When every single one of these living, breathing children has a loving adoptive home, I’ll be happy to chat with Douthat about abortion. Until then, he can kiss my ass.
Exactly … he wants little blond white girls to have unprotected and avoid abortions so they can hand them over to be raised by the lily white suburban set. I guess Asian children are acceptable these days too in the baby market.
With regards to birth control. In my county, there are NO birth control services for teens. None.
I think that there should be clinics on as many corners as we could possibly fund that will protect teens from unwanted pregnancy and STDs. I also would like to offer drug and alcohol abuse treatment. Those things would be a really good use of tax payers dollars because the issues they cause are just very expensive. Jail’s expensive and that frequently winds up being our answer to everything these days. Plus it turns the mental ill, the addicted, and troubled kids into full blown criminals and worse.
Yup, same here. But there are plenty of churches that will give free pregnancy test. Of course, there is no assistance after the fact.
From Amanda Marcotte:
From Melissa at Shakesville:
Feministe:
These morons and their “moral superiority” based on illogic that is bible based drive me insane.
Douthat will never face that quandry or be placed in the position of ever having to make the decision for himself so his meanding essay is ridiculous.
Don’t want an abortion? Don’t have one but please get out of the wombs of those women who choose otherwise.
Here’s another one about another knuckledragger … the usual suspect on SCOTUS
I don’t see anything knuckle-draggerish in that. At all.
Saying that the Constitution doesn’t forbid gender discrimination for the small reason that it doesn’t is no more bad than is saying that Griswold v Connecticut was a bad decision because the majority opinion cited everything but the third amendment (almost literally.)
Every day I read about millions of unwanted American children in foster homes. Where are all of the deserate adoptive parents? Why don’t they take these already born children in if they have so much love to give? Millions more are homeless along with the rest of their families. Millions suffer from hunger and millions do not have access to health care. Millions are being shortchanged on their education. And the same assholes who bitch and cry about the unborn do not give one shit about all of these already born.
They do not want to help unmarried women support their children. They do not want to help mothers get an education to support thier new unwanted baby. They are not willing to have their taxes increased so that these already born have a good education and an opportunity to excel. They do not want to feed these children, support these children and they damn sure don’t want them going to their doctors.
Ross Douthat is a waste of space and I cannot believe anyone reads his crap. He doesn’t know a damned thing about being alone and pregnant and desperate. He doesn’t have to live with knowing the baby he is carrying has down’s syndrome, or something worse. Yes, I know many people raise severely handicapped children, but it is hard, and a woman deserves a choice. It appears that Douthat thinks all of these unborn being left unborn are depriving upper class white families of healthy blond, blue eyed babies. Most of them aren’t.
OK, here are my solutions:
1. No sex with men. None. Lysistrata revisited. Until we are back to abortions in hospitals with our ob/gyns, not hidden strip mall clinics with armed guards. Our choice what we do with our bodies. Alone. Codified. In the law. Nothing less. (Also, no laundry or cooking. Uh oh, now we’re getting serious.) Even if 50% of us did this, we’d get our way in no time flat.
2. Before any sexual intercourse with a man, the man must prove who he is – provide name, address, driver’s license, SSN, employer, etc. Proof. Not his say-so. He then must sign a contract stating that, if by some freak accident (ha!) the woman becomes pregnant, he agrees to paternity testing. (I LOVE the implications for one-night stands or unfortunate interludes with married men – just imagine the guy trying to cope, wanting an anonymous quickie (not that there’s anything wrong with that, believe me) and having to sign a document and fork over ID, a truly hilarious skit. Takes the fun right out of it, no, fellas?) Then, of course, deluge the courts with child support orders. Track the men down. Make them pay their fair share (a concept that will be Greek to many of them.)
3. Give all the millions of unwanted children to Ross. He cares so very much – oh wait, that’s just BEFORE they’re born. Well, then, he can have all those millions of excess eggs stored in fertility clinics.
And I really like men!
I especially like number 3. Although, Andrew Sullivan wrote something pathetic today about it too, so can he share in that?
Note: he put some outrageously huge fetus doll on the thread to which was appalling. Then there’s this little tidbit.
How can any one be so completely clueless?
The brain becomes fried when exposed to too much twaddle as this essay substantiates.
What is wrong with the frickin’ so called liberal media that they can hire this twits? Like who needs to be lectured by young rich suburban boys with about as much depth and live experience as a gold fish in a bowl?
It sounds like he’s talking about dogs and cats. Like women should have babies and then hand them over to some shelter where prospective parents can come and pick one out. That is sickening.
What marks a civilization in my view is how we treat the people who are already alive and suffering. The U.S. record on infant mortality is a disgrace! It’s a disgrace that children around this country are homeless and trying to attend school without even having a home.
Great post, Dai!
I definitely think Ross should be forced to adopt several children post haste!
Yes, I’d say a few with special needs and severe handicaps from premature births would be perfect for him.
Number 2 is already the case, to an extent. At the very least, if you apply for social services for a child, they’ll ask for the SSN and name of the father and go after him for payment for the value of whatever is recieved.
I knew that MTV special would cause freakouts. Dr. Drew (ugh) is always trying to push adoption as if it’s no big deal to gestate a fetus for 9 months and then hand it off to strangers, but the girls on the show were upfront about the fact that there were things, emotionally and physically, that they didn’t want to go through, after watching others in their circle, and they didn’t have to. They were allowed to actually think about themselves when making choices in their lives, so they’ve got to be put in their places. And damn. Most of these articles have a strong subtext, but rarely is it so blantantly “You owe us, Breeder Class! We need your babies!” Ross might want to explain to the family that if they go through the state instead of a fancy private adoption broker, they’ll have no trouble finding a newborn to adopt.
Foster care is big business these days…people need money and out of work. They aren’t putting this kids with direct family members.
Here is something I experienced this past summer, while visiting a friend, she received a call about a yard sell, with lots of children’s stuff. She and I went, lordy be, this woman
from Australia, had 4 of each, and each new, high chairs, cribs, car seats, potty chairs. Not to mention a ton of clothes. I asked her about her four children, and she said she and her husband had been approved to be foster parents here in California, but he had lost his job, and they were returning to Australia…….. they were no longer interested in caring for kids.
It’s becoming a money maker.
Oh, that’s just wrong
It’s not a money maker for the “real” ones. A lot of the children who wind up in foster care are so damaged that they will never be able to function outside of an at-least semi-institutional environment, and the child welfare agents basically get to make the rules up as they go along.
BKilpatrick, I know, I have met some of the real ones, they have deep issues, including sexual abuse in foster homes. My daughter had developed a relationship with a guy who had so much trauma, and in the end, she remained his friend, but the strain and
stress was unbelievable. Many of these kids are in/out prison, and end up homeless on the streets at a young age.
It makes me think of the cases in Oakland with sex trafficing……..awful.