Twisty Faster Is Fucking Insane.

Okay, I think this needs to be a recurring feature. Like Cosmocking! I never could resist a good fish in a barrel.

The funny thing about Twisty is that at least a third of the time I agree with what she says, while still being completely appalled at the way she says it. Like this post. I totally agree that ultrasounds should not be a prerequisite for abortions! I think that's a medically and morally unnecessary pain-in-the-ass law that shouldn't be passed. The only place where I part ways with Twisty is the part where she's crazy.

If they are given the opportunity (i.e. forced) to endure a fetus-screening (”Here’s baby’s precious little beating heart, here’s his adorable little brain stem …”), they will see the error of their ways and comply with the godbag mandate to shut up and be punished for the sin of fornication by incubating to term, followed by a lifetime of child-rearing drudgery.
A) Uh, I don't mean to sound like a "godbag" or nothing but human development really is pretty amazing and... gosh, I hope it isn't antifeminist to say that babies and fetuses are cute and a little bit awe-inspiring.

I feel like there's something in Twisty that's utterly resistant to shades of gray: in order to be pro-choice, you must feel that fetuses--indeed all children--are totally worthless and disgusting! You can't reluctantly support early-term abortion as a lesser evil, you have to be WOOO ABORTION I'D ABORT A TWO-YEAR OLD IF I COULD! Otherwise you're exactly the same as the godbags.

B)I honestly don't believe that even the godbaggiest of godbags wants to punish women. I really don't. I think that they either want to save fetuses, or they want to gain the approval of people who want to save fetuses.

And here's the black-and-white again: people who oppose me can't possibly think differently, they must be evil and hate me! That's the only possibility! It's positively paranoid.

Of course the megatheocorporatocracy’s conspiracy against pregnant women has always sought to control them through medical procedures.
No, a wide variety of individuals and institutions have used medical procedures to make pregnant women die less. Humans got kind of a shit deal on childbirthing, with our babies' heads just too damn big compared to our hips, and it's taken a lot of knowledge and technology to minimize the dangers associated with that. Sweeping it all away in a wash of "they really just want to control me" paranoia... damn.

I guess the weird part isn't that this woman exists, the weird part is that she has followers.

Nobody knows what the fuck they’re looking at when they see an ultrasound image of a fetus, but thanks to clever marketing by Medical Nation, it is widely touted as a sentimental bonding moment and has achieved the status of a cultural institution.
Ooh, anti-intellectualism always looks good on a feminist. "Hurf durf amazing technology giving stunningly clear views inside the body if you know how to interpret it, hurf durf that don't look like no photograph so I guess it's all just squiggles, hurffff." And, um, does it really take that much marketing to make people get warmfuzzies about seeing their baby for the first time? Seems like sort of a gimme...

The state colonization of the American uterus must end.
Abortion isn't just about uteruses. Abortion, pro or con, is also about fetuses.



EDIT: Of course, Twisty Faster's commenters are fucking insaner.

another thing–ultrasounds have not yet been proven safe–especially in the early stages of pregnancy. “nothing’s happened yet…” is the medical world’s guarantee of safety. so they want to force a procedure on a woman that could–in theory–damage the child? interesting.
A) Well, considering this is happening at abortion clinics, geez, does it really matter?

B) "Nothing's happened yet" (in many, many years when millions of ultrasounded babies have now grown to adulthood) is anybody's guarantee of safety. How do you know oranges aren't deadly poisonous? Nothing's happened yet.

in conservative societies like pakistan where there is no place for ‘illegitimate’ children and ‘illicit’ sexual relations are meant to kept hidden, this social anti-abortion mandate is absent. you can get abortions easily because pregnancy is not a medicalized institution. only the family (minus the children) and closest friends know about pregnancy and it doesn’t get out into the wider social circle. there are no regular scans and no ultrasound baby-mother bonding. there is no talk of the woman being ‘with child’, because the child is what happens after your pregnancy gets the social recognition. and this shows how ‘baby’ is a socially constructed concept, which is variable across societies.
But... abortion's illegal in Pakistan! Five minutes of Google, I tell ya, it's worth two hours of pomo deconstruction.

One of the other common rhetorical tactics of the anti-abortionist godbags (right after the “medical information” racket) is giving the kid up for adoption after birth. But why do the godbags support adoption at all? Wouldn’t that give women an out for the latter half of the godbag’s punishment? They won’t adopt the kid themselves when the woman is from certain minority groups, so it’s not to get extra Jesus soldiers. Do they expect Maury Povich to corner the woman in ten years to reunite her with a resentful biological child? What’s their scheme?
Their "scheme" is actually caring about the kid, and it's weird how you almost worked that out for yourself before retreating back into your paranoia comfy zone.

In fact, why not just go a step further and make all abortion services free? Well I think I know why.
Because doctors and nurses and drugs and facilities aren't free, durrr.

And there's a whole bunch of people kerfuffling about how a vaginal wand ultrasound is basically rape, because anytime anything goes in the vagina that's rape. Hell, in three to five days I'm going to have to rape myself with some tampons. Tonight if I get to bed early I might rape myself a little before turning in.