Alo, you’re point is extremely well written and I thank you for taking the time to respond in such a detailed manner. You are absolutely right in regards the attitude of these women. I have found that the worst opponents to feminism are not the men, but the women who have bought into the myth of their own subjugation. I think we agree that Santorum’s wife must be of this ilk. How could she be otherwise with a husband like that? One could almost pity her if not for the damage she does to her own sisters. Women do need to stick together so we could rule the world. Not to say we’d do a better job, but that we have different a power of our own, different from male power. But then again, maybe I”m deluded and power corrupts women as much as it does men. I think both Bachmann and Palin are examples of that! Right? Awww, screw it….gender be damned. That’s where we need to get to….the absence of gender bias. Alas, I think I am yet dreaming……

🙂 Good night felow Cescaites.

The good Xtianist wife must be in submission to her husband, so it’s ultimately his decision. She would have had a say, but he would have made the final decision. Sad, sick, infantilizing, call it what you will, but it’s part of the package. That’s what I was getting at, if insufficiently clearly.

Conservatives, cultural conservatives specifically, seem to lack empathy. I have no idea if Karen Santorum does or not, but five bucks says she’s as bad as her husband. Change the gender of the pronouns in what I wrote and you’ll probably have a pretty accurate description of her mindset: women she doesn’t know can’t be trusted to make the right decision.

Abortion is sometimes a woman’s least bad option, and I’m not picking on Karen Santorum when I point out that she knows this. So does every conservative woman whose teenaged daughter misses her period (and her boyfriend stops taking her calls, imagine that). They know they can be trusted with important decisions, but none of them can bring themselves to think of strangers as rational, autonomous beings because of that lack of empathy.

I know and have known women who have had abortions and none of them have done so rashly or for foolish reasons. Even if that weren’t true, though, I would never dream of treating them as anything other than full persons, and I would never dream of treating any other woman as anything other than a full person.

As a man, I will never know what it’s like to be pregnant, and I will never know what it’s like to have to make (or even ponder) the decision to terminate a pregnancy. And as such, I know I am not entitled to an opinion on those issues; I know my place, if I may be glib. I am, alas, something of an anomaly in this, which is why too many women have to worry about whether they will have access to necessary medical procedures, something you have experienced personally (for what it’s worth, I offer you my sympathies).

There may be a point somewhere to be found in these ramblings, though I don’t guarantee it (hey, it’s late and I’m tired).

–alopecia

I don’t disagree at all. But the point that I was making wasn’t from Santorum’s perspective. As a woman, I want to know her perspective. I thought it was fascinating that she assumed she had the power to choose. But then obediently accepts her husbands evil stance against choice during his campaign. I’m looking into her cognitive dissonance, not his.

The reason this matters to me is because about 3 mos before I became pregnant with Liam, I had a miscarriage and I had to have a D&C. I was afraid at the time that I wouldn’t be given the choice to have one in Arizona. Naturally and medically I could have waited to see what my body did on its own to get rid of the poor angel who had died (I can’t call it a fetus, it was my little angel, liberal though I am). Technically it was a spontaneous abortion at 7 weeks due to a genetic defect.

In any case, I was given the choice to let my body take control and wait and see. There were two outcomes, it would clear itself out but last several weeks if not months and be very emotionally and physically taxing or if my body didn’t do what it was supposed to, I would develop an infection and be very, very sick. So I the option of a quick outpatient D&C and be back at work within 24 hours…..Since I was the only one working and my body never behaves in ways it is supposed to, I chose the D&C

I simply thought it was ironic, that the wife of a very religious and conservative politician assumed she has that option, that right; whereas, I, a liberal and devout agnostic, assumed I did not. I find that absolutely fascinating coupled with her husband’s public stance on abortion.

I’d suggest it’s more a lack of empathy. Rick Santorum would never in a million years have prevented his wife from having labor induced, and if another woman he knows went through an experience similar to his wife’s but was induced, he’d almost certainly think that she did nothing wrong. However, he’s unwilling—no, scratch that, he’s unable—to generalize and allow (subtle emphasis on that word) women he doesn’t know the same autonomy. He doesn’t trust them to make the right decision because he doesn’t know them; therefore, they must follow rigid rules and jump through hoops.

–alopecia

And again, his wife gets to have a say in what happens but no one else’s wife gets to be heard. I really think this goes back to the arrogant thinking at the base of Christianism in this country. Since they believe with all their tiny, cold hearts they merit God’s special attention and protection and sinners do not, they get to do things sinners cannot. This righteous arrogance allows them to believe they can do as they please, but everyone else by golly had better follow the rules. I say if there is really a Hell, these folks will be front and center.

AND the other point to be made about her admission, is that Santorum’s wife actually felt that she had a say in the matter. In fact, I would guess that she assumed she would have a say in the matter of whether labor was induced that would lead to the definite end of the fetus life AND that her husband would go along with it. Yet Santorum now says that women don’t get to have a say in such a procedure. He wants to take away their input, the very input his wife assumed she would have back then. The irony is thick enough to choke on.

The admission that they *would have* induced is enough to show up Santorum as a hypocrite of the highest degree. I don’t know how they can hold these stances with any kind of conscience. 🙁 I also read the link you posted earlier, Nicole, on the ‘only moral abortion’. I am so sad that so much of our society is dominated by such judgmental and hypocritical people.

They wanted a health exception, which of course is a phony exception which would make the ban ineffective. –Rick Santorum, Tuesday June 7, 2011

An exception to an abortion ban to protect the life of a pregnant woman is “a phony exception,” according to Rick Santorum—unless it’s Santorum’s wife whose life is endangered, in which case the rules just … change. How terribly convenient.

Words cannot express the contempt I feel for Rick Santorum.

–alopecia

lol. is that good or bad?? 🙂

I just like to make sure that we get the facts straight, and since Amy questioned the inducement aspect, I did some research. Really, I should have just done a post on my own damn blog, lol.

You, my dear Nicole, are something else. 🙂