DNC panel actually doesn’t know whether men can have abortions?

 

The Washington Free Beacon reports:

The Atlantic and Refinery29 hosted a panel discussion entitled “Young Women Rising: America’s Next Top Voter?” during the Democratic National Convention, Tuesday evening. Following a 30-minute conversation on “intersectionality” and millennial feminism, a reporter asked the panel for its thoughts on reproductive rights and women’s health issues for men who ascribe to a female gender identity. Ayanna Pressley, a Boston city councilor at-large, said the issue of men who identify as women getting abortions is all about “elevated consciousness.”

I think by “elevated consciousness” she means “stultified intellect.”

When asked if trans women are “being denied their reproductive rights” Pressley was stumped.

“You got me on that one.”

Indeed.

Alex Wagner, a senior editor for the Atlantic who moderated the discussion, then deflected the conversation.

“Reproductive rights affect men and women, right?” she said. “Making a baby naturally takes two things. That’s just what I hear.”

Alex may have just cost herself a career. I mean, what a bigot.

I guess her defense is her qualifying sentence. She has heard others say that it takes “two things” (presumably an actual male and actual female) to make a baby. SHE doesn’t believe that, of course…she’s “just” heard that from transphobes. Nothing to do with biology. Or, better, “biology.”

Thanks @jamielockett in the comments for reminding me of this classic.

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  1. Mate De Inactive
    Mate De
    @MateDe

    HA!! and Republicans are anti-science??!!!!

    • #1
  2. PHenry Inactive
    PHenry
    @PHenry

    Next:  prosecution of a doctor who refuses to perform an abortion on a man who feels that he is a woman who is pregnant.  Because, discrimination.

    • #2
  3. KC Mulville Inactive
    KC Mulville
    @KCMulville

    Wow. It was so much less confusing when we had to stick to reality.

    • #3
  4. Jamie Lockett Member
    Jamie Lockett
    @JamieLockett

    Ahem:

    What clowns.

    • #4
  5. Doug Watt Member
    Doug Watt
    @DougWatt

    Perhaps they just want to make sure that no baby escapes  Planned Parenthood. I’m surprised that storks have not been hunted to extinction.

    • #5
  6. MBF Inactive
    MBF
    @MBF

    South Park was on this years ago. The kids’ teacher becomes a trans woman. The first thing “she” hopes to do to prove her newfound female bonafides is to procure an abortion.

    • #6
  7. CoffeeDogHouse Inactive
    CoffeeDogHouse
    @CoffeeDogHouse

    I read that Free Beacon article; nice commentary on that weirdness.  Sometimes life seems to be imitating Monty Python.

    • #7
  8. RightAngles Member
    RightAngles
    @RightAngles

    I sure wish I had as much free time as these people seem to.

    • #8
  9. Lily Bart Inactive
    Lily Bart
    @LilyBart

    We are required to pretend that trans people are who they say they are – and any deviation will not be tolerated.

    • #9
  10. A-Squared Inactive
    A-Squared
    @ASquared

    Biology and the prejudices of others conspired to keep them abortionless.

    • #10
  11. Knotwise the Poet Member
    Knotwise the Poet
    @KnotwisethePoet

    Jamie Lockett:Ahem:

    What clowns.

    I can’t remember who was the first person to post this skit on Ricochet, but I am grateful to them for introducing me to it, as my mind keeps going back to it again and again and again.  I’m thinking this skit may be the most prescient ahead-of-its-time skit ever.  You watch it now and it doesn’t even feel like satire, but like some psychohistorical documentary.

    • #11
  12. Mate De Inactive
    Mate De
    @MateDe

    You know that old Chesterton quote about being so open minded your brain falls out (I’m paraphrasing of course).

    • #12
  13. Vance Richards Inactive
    Vance Richards
    @VanceRichards

    Mate De:HA!! and Republicans are anti-science??!!!!

    But “Biology”, or whatever they are calling it today, isn’t one of the  hard sciences like man-made climate change by consensus.

    • #13
  14. Chuck Enfield Inactive
    Chuck Enfield
    @ChuckEnfield

    Jamie Lockett:Ahem:

    What clowns.

    FWIW, I think there’s value in recognizing and individual’s right to do a thing even if they cannot or do not want to do that thing.  We seem to have reached a state of lawmaking and jurisprudence where if you can’t or won’t do a thing which some people have the right to do, then we have to find an alternative right which suits your disposition.  The fact is that we’ve met our constitutional obligations if you have the same rights as everybody else.  Ability is immaterial.

    • #14
  15. The Question Inactive
    The Question
    @TheQuestion

    If someone wants to pretend or play at being the opposite sex, then that is certainly their right.  But of course, calling a transman a “pretend” man would be the ultimate act of intolerance.

    This is an article from Everyday Feminism (a treasure trove of insanity) by a transman worrying that his gynecologist might have trouble seeing him as a man after doing his pap smear.

    If I met a transman, I could avoid being a jerk about it.  However, I am a biology teacher.  If I was directly posed the question, “Are my ovaries female?” or “Is my uterus female?,” I’d have to give the answer I understand to be true.

    • #15
  16. Kozak Member
    Kozak
    @Kozak

    Greg Scott:

    the issue of men who identify as women getting abortions is all about “elevated consciousness.”

    Until you have to insert the vacuum curette in whatever they “identify” as their cervix…..

    • #16
  17. Tommy De Seno Member
    Tommy De Seno
    @TommyDeSeno

    Intersectionality appears to be victimhood stacking.

    I think if you can prove you suffer from being a minority in gender, race, religion, class, ability, income, age and identity, you get to morph into a more powerful Pokémon.

    I’m almost sure that’s it.

    • #17
  18. Typical Anomaly Inactive
    Typical Anomaly
    @TypicalAnomaly

    Jamie Lockett:Ahem:

    Thanks for the link. Halfway though the OP all I could hear in my pointy head was:

    1: I want to have babies.

    2: You can’t have babies.

    1: Don’t you oppress me.

    2: I’m not oppressing you, Stan. You haven’t got a womb. Where’s the fetus gonna gestate? You gonna keep it in a box?

    Only this is IRL. Well, sort of real.

    • #18
  19. Dorrk Inactive
    Dorrk
    @Dorrk

    This is a good peek at the chaos progressives are introducing into old-school feminism. What happens when NCAA female sports teams are made up of gender-nonconforming men and there’s no longer room for authentic women in the team? Or when other hard-fought “women’s rights” are gradually assumed by “women” at the expense of bio-females?

    There’s long been a contradiction between the progressive paradox that gender is insignificant when it suits them, but also so significant that we need 31+ genders defined as protected classes. If gender truly doesn’t matter, then there is no such thing as gay, or trans, or two-spirit: those are all lies piled upon a false social construct.

    • #19
  20. Grosseteste Thatcher
    Grosseteste
    @Grosseteste

    The Question: This is an article from Everyday Feminism (a treasure trove of insanity) by a transman worrying that his gynecologist might have trouble seeing him as a man after doing his pap smear.

    Whoa, so the gyno needs to wait to hear your made-up anatomical terms for what used to be lady parts before you decided to identify as male?

    • #20
  21. Merina Smith Inactive
    Merina Smith
    @MerinaSmith

    PHenry:Next: prosecution of a doctor who refuses to perform an abortion on a man who feels that he is a woman who is pregnant. Because, discrimination.

    At least the “abortion” wouldn’t kill an actual baby.  Ya gotta look on the bright side these days.

    • #21
  22. Metalheaddoc Member
    Metalheaddoc
    @Metalheaddoc

    Kozak:

    Greg Scott:

    the issue of men who identify as women getting abortions is all about “elevated consciousness.”

    Until you have to insert the vacuum curette in whatever they “identify” as their cervix…..

    It’s way up in their mangina.

    • #22
  23. Tim H. Inactive
    Tim H.
    @TimH

    This seems to be the endpoint of postmodernism.  I’ve made fun of this mess of a worldview for a while, but I still cannot manage to put myself in the mindset of this kind of person.

    Once in Sunday School, there was this one woman who was arguing for a very relativistic view of some issue of difference between Christianity and Islam (the divinity of Christ).  I responded that this was a debate over a statement of fact.  One view could be true or false, but both couldn’t be.  She said, “It’s true for them.”

    I wasn’t sure how she meant this, so I took a piece of paper and dropped it, and I asked, “Did this just drop?”  She answered, “Well, it did for me.

    I have no idea how to respond to this kind of rejection of reality.

    • #23
  24. Chuck Enfield Inactive
    Chuck Enfield
    @ChuckEnfield

    Metalheaddoc:

    Kozak:

    Greg Scott:

    the issue of men who identify as women getting abortions is all about “elevated consciousness.”

    Until you have to insert the vacuum curette in whatever they “identify” as their cervix…..

    It’s way up in their mangina.

    I know a few guys with manginas.  They all identify as male, though I’ve had my doubts.

    • #24
  25. Bishop Wash Member
    Bishop Wash
    @BishopWash

    Knotwise the Poet:

    Jamie Lockett:Ahem:

    What clowns.

    I can’t remember who was the first person to post this skit on Ricochet, but I am grateful to them for introducing me to it, as my mind keeps going back to it again and again and again. I’m thinking this skit may be the most prescient ahead-of-its-time skit ever. You watch it now and it doesn’t even feel like satire, but like some psychohistorical documentary.

    A few years later the troupe had another ahead-of-its-time skit in The Meaning of Life.

    Now this one isn’t satire either.

    • #25
  26. Kate Braestrup Member
    Kate Braestrup
    @GrannyDude

    The Question:If someone wants to pretend or play at being the opposite sex, then that is certainly their right. But of course, calling a transman a “pretend” man would be the ultimate act of intolerance.

    This is an article from Everyday Feminism (a treasure trove of insanity) by a transman worrying that his gynecologist might have trouble seeing him as a man after doing his pap smear.

    If I met a transman, I could avoid being a jerk about it. However, I am a biology teacher. If I was directly posed the question, “Are my ovaries female?” or “Is my uterus female?,” I’d have to give the answer I understand to be true.

    Ah, I get it. We aren’t talking about actual men-men having abortions, but women who identify as men…and who, evidently, have sex with men and get pregnant by them.

    Even my vaguely liberal, inclined-to-be-sympathetic husband’s brow creased in puzzled irritation at this.

    • #26
  27. Mate De Inactive
    Mate De
    @MateDe

    Grosseteste:

    The Question: This is an article from Everyday Feminism (a treasure trove of insanity) by a transman worrying that his gynecologist might have trouble seeing him as a man after doing his pap smear.

    Whoa, so the gyno needs to wait to hear your made-up anatomical terms for what used to be lady parts before you decided to identify as male?

    WOW, we have reached the depths of insanity with that one. If you were a man, then you wouldn’t need a gynocologist now would you? This is what annoys me about the trans thing, if you want to live your life as the opposite sex, dress that way, act that way, fine, that is your deal. But the rest of society does not have any obligation to suspend reality to conform to how you wish to live your life. Also what does he/she/ze care what her/ him/zim’s gyno thinks?

    • #27
  28. Joe P Member
    Joe P
    @JoeP

    Tim H.:I wasn’t sure how she meant this, so I took a piece of paper and dropped it, and I asked, “Did this just drop?” She answered, “Well, it did for me.

    I have no idea how to respond to this kind of rejection of reality.

    She said, “It’s true for them.”

    The only thing that might work in that situation is to trigger an immediate feeling of moral outrage.

    Nobody really believes in relativism of any sort. The people who adopt it usually do so without much logical thought because they see themselves as openminded, tolerant people. The part they often miss is that it makes moral disagreement impossible: a true relativist can only say “X is wrong for me” instead of the objective “X is wrong.”

    If you aren’t talking to a computer or a psycopath, choose a value for X that is a moral hot button for that person and smash it as hard as possible. Once they reflexively disagree, point out that they really aren’t a relativist because they just said X is objectively wrong. Now they are forced to choose between relativism and X’s wrongness. If you pick the right value for X, the other person will ditch the relativism.

    It’s important to choose an X that makes the person uncomfortable with defending relativism, in order to highlight and resolve the contradiction between beliefs that they themselves hold. Paper dropping doesn’t do that for most people.

    • #28
  29. Tim H. Inactive
    Tim H.
    @TimH

    Joe P:The only thing that might work in that situation is to trigger an immediate feeling of moral outrage.

    Nobody really believes in relativism of any sort. The people who adopt it usually do so without much logical thought because they see themselves as openminded, tolerant people. The part they often miss is that it makes moral disagreement impossible: a true relativist can only say “X is wrong for me” instead of the objective “X is wrong.”

    Your suggestion might work.  I’ll have to think of topics to pick on that would make them reject relativism in at least that case and have it up my sleeve.

    I’ve also decided that nobody’s a relativist about real life.  Even if she was unwilling to state that the piece of paper objectively fell and hit the floor, I bet that she looks both ways before crossing a road.  That she doesn’t jump out of windows.  That she balances her checkbook.  All of these things could be ignored by a true relativist, but she probably believes in objective reality where it counts.

    • #29
  30. Tim H. Inactive
    Tim H.
    @TimH

    Kate Braestrup:Ah, I get it. We aren’t talking about actual men-men having abortions, but women who identify as men…and who, evidently, have sex with men and get pregnant by them.

    Ohhh, so that’s what this is about!  I had been blissfully unaware of the definitions of some of these words and thought we were talking about actual men pretending to be women and wanting abortions.

    I think I might just have to lock myself in my house and let the craziness of the world go past.  I hope I don’t have to deal with this much.

    • #30
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