Good News Out of the Finance Committee

"So you can excuse Hatch's blithe approach to the matter." Can't we just excuse Hatch.

"The proposal suggested that the "woman is assuming she will have abortions," Snowe said in explaining her opposition. "Most of these pregnancies that result in abortion are unplanned pregnancies.""

Complete non sequitur. In fact, people buy insurance specifically to cover expenses they don't intend to incur. Otherwise, it's not really insurance, is it?

And a woman who's not planning on getting pregnant is that much less likely to need an abortion, right?

It's always amusing to watch you libs think, though. Truly -- like watching an alternate reality right before my eyes.

Is there any way to get these John Galt maroons to actually "go Galt" on the intertubes? Good grief. I used to be more patient with men's thoughts on abortion, thinking, well, it's not their fault they don't have a womb, to crib from Monty Python, they can still have valuable opinions on the subject. Increasingly, though, I think men's thoughts on pregnancy (and whether it should be covered by insurance) and terminating pregnancy (and whether that should be covered by insurance) should be given relevance as soon as they can get pregnant. They seem awfully content to pawn off all the responsibilities onto women.

If you're going to throw rocks, sweetie, why not throw them at the maroon who finds it "galling" that people should buy their own insurance for their own abortions. Or why the fact that they're not planning on getting pregnant should somehow affect whether they pay for the butcher themselves.

Or you might want to ask how you can be "forced" to buy your own abortion insurance, but it's not "force" if I have to buy it for you.

I have to agree that the logic of the putatively feminist argument here baffles: First, people who support a new federal mandate to buy insurance are now upset about "forcing" forcing people to buy insurance; second, people who claim antiabortion folks lie about whether their tax dollars will pay for abortions continue to oppose steps to ensure what they claim will be true; third, as noted above, the whole idea of any insurance policy is to help one deal with the unplanned contingency. Why is the "forcing of women to buy their own separate abortion insurance" more of an affront to the system than forcing the rest of us, through subsidy, to help them acquire it?

But, if we note that women took umbrage, and that men can't face this difficult choice, by golly we can establish our feminist bona fides with aplomb. Just not with logic.

Jenn2, your condescending remarks toward men do not substitute for logic, either, anymore than the old patriarchal insult that women can't think straight--are "hysterical"--because they *do* have uteruses. I'm all for holding men responsible for pregnancies. I'm for all of society pulling together to help women who face difficult pregnancies. I'm just not for pretending that a pregnancy doesn't involve an actual, living human being only when we'd rather not face that fact.

And the sort of illogical, shrill arguments that were thrown up at the innocuous Hatch amendment proposed today demonstrate the denial that's going on pretty well.

It's not condescending, it's pissed off. I just do not care what men's opinions are about women's bodies any more, and that animosity has been well earned. So, hands on ears and la la la.
"Sweetie" is condescending, and it's what you would call a woman you were affectionate with if that person existed and women weren't just "going Galt" on dating you.

Hmmm, just one short step from "Good News!" to "not really" in the comments section.

Too bad we don't have some Dems who can vote for stuff when the Republicans aren't voting for it. Oligarchies like ours usually don't last long.

Jenn2, I concur that the previous commenter should not have called you "sweetie." I also reject the notion that there is a deep epistemic divide between men and women on abortion, which involves, in any event, more than women's bodies. Surely the experience of women cannot be discounted, but neither do we normally treat such distinctive situations as totally authoritative.

Consider, for instance, that while we take seriously the experience of victims of crime in our sentencing and in the writing of laws, we do not rely exclusively upon victims to determine the propriety of sentences, nor the guilt of particular accused individuals. Normally we measure a combination of experience and objectivity where such momentous issues are at stake.

Finally, the arguments that men make about abortion are not typically different than those made by women. Indeed, women tend to be more strongly anti-abortion than men, though both groups remain marginally pro-choice, at least as to early pregnancy. (Though this year Gallup for the first time found a majority of Americans describing themselves as "pro-life"--not sure what the gender breakdown was.) Thus, the purported epistemic divide between men and women on this issue cannot be verfied by statistics nor by the substance of the arguments. I suppose this is why you support it by saying you are "pissed off." I can't gainsay your experience or your emotion, but it doesn't hold up as an argument.

Hatch's mama should have had one.

par4, the only proper response to that bit of profundity comes from Stewie Griffin, responding to an invocation of the gameshow catch phrase "you are the weakest link." To wit:

Olivia: You are the weakest link, goodbye. (laughter)
Stewie: Ha ha ha! Oh gosh that's funny! That's really funny! Do you write your own material? Do you? Because that is so fresh. You are the weakest link goodbye. You know, I've, I've never heard anyone make that joke before. Hmm. You're the first. I've never heard anyone reference, reference that outside the program before. Because that's what she says on the show right? Isn't it? You are the weakest link goodbye. And, and yet you've taken that and used it out of context to insult me in this everyday situation. God what a clever, smart girl you must be, to come up with a joke like that all by yourself. That's so fresh too. Any, any Titanic jokes you want to throw at me too as long as we're hitting these phenomena at the height of their popularity. God you're so funny!

""Sweetie" is condescending"

That's nice. And what sort of connotation would you place on "maroons," sweetie?