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News & ArtsFriday, July 31, 2009
Religion God is Death
Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Jul 31, 2009 at 9:20 AM
Nicaragua's ban on all abortions, even when a woman's life is at risk, is compelling incest and rape victims to give birth and contributing to an increase in maternal deaths, according to a report from Amnesty International.Some Christians really know how to make life easy for Satan.Delegates from the human rights charity, who recently visited the predominantly Catholic country, say young girls subjected to sexual violence by family or friends are forced to give birth even when they are carrying their own brothers and sisters.
The report also says the law has led to a recorded rise in pregnant teenagers committing suicide by consuming poison.
1
Nobody gets out of here alive and in the end God wants all of us dead anyway. Abortion is bad because, on the one hand the aborted hasn't had a chance to have the original, factory installed sin removed but on the other hand hasn't yet committed any death deserving sins.
5
Great title, Charles.
What else do you blame God for?
Last time I checked, God went on hiatus for wrath, somewhere after the Old Testament, with the Book of Revelations pending.
You blame Satan. That's clever and funny. The culprits in this sad tragedy also blame Satan, I reckon.
I, too, like to blame Satan for things of which I disapprove, mostly people who can't figure out a four-way stop.
This seems more like the work of man, i.e. same species as you.
@2 You say this could happen here? I disagree. Too many armed citizens. Theocracies can't tolerate armed dissidence.
What else do you blame God for?
Last time I checked, God went on hiatus for wrath, somewhere after the Old Testament, with the Book of Revelations pending.
You blame Satan. That's clever and funny. The culprits in this sad tragedy also blame Satan, I reckon.
I, too, like to blame Satan for things of which I disapprove, mostly people who can't figure out a four-way stop.
This seems more like the work of man, i.e. same species as you.
@2 You say this could happen here? I disagree. Too many armed citizens. Theocracies can't tolerate armed dissidence.
7
@5: Ah, there's that pesky little Second Amendment thing again. You know, the one Charles would do away with if he had his way.
8
Oh god, this makes me crazy with rage.
When I lived in Nicaragua, from 2004 to 2006, abortion was legal and reasonably attainable in most major cities. It was not socially sanctioned, but it was definitely doable. The cost was around US $50, and it was a lifeline for many women who had no options. And when I say they had no options, they had no options in a way that an American cannot understand. I still don't fully understand myself, and I lived among them and speak their language.
The report is so right to zero in on the sexual violence that is a part of family life there. Family life in Nicaragua is the basis of all social life, and women often go weeks or even months at a time without ever socializing with anyone outside the family. A woman's life is largely spent indoors, frequently mopping the floor (which any self-respecting housekeeper does twice a day in that dusty country). Uncles, male cousins and their friends show up, get fed, and are often alone with female relatives. This is also a society where men are sanctioned for trying to fuck anything female that moves, as represented by this joke I learned there: What did the Nica father say to his son? Son, you can't fuck every woman, but you must at least try.
Do the math, and the report that these girls are often pregnant with their own brothers and sisters is all too believable to me.
This is, not surprisingly, compounded by the difficulty in obtaining birth control. Two of my Nica friends, women in their 20s, could not obtain birth control from a Nica pharmacy without showing up with either their boyfriends or their fathers to give consent. And when one of them demanded to have her tubes tied after her second child, the doctor flatly refused because she had no husband to consent and her father wasn't around either. She was 26. I had to bribe him with US dollars to do it.
Finally, there is no substantive social prohibition against older men having sex with 13- 14- 15-year-old girls. One of my thirty-something colleagues at the high school I worked at was fucking a student, and while other teachers tsk tsk-ed about it, he didn't lose his job.
I'll give the Nicas this: at least they don't have the death penalty there.
More...
When I lived in Nicaragua, from 2004 to 2006, abortion was legal and reasonably attainable in most major cities. It was not socially sanctioned, but it was definitely doable. The cost was around US $50, and it was a lifeline for many women who had no options. And when I say they had no options, they had no options in a way that an American cannot understand. I still don't fully understand myself, and I lived among them and speak their language.
The report is so right to zero in on the sexual violence that is a part of family life there. Family life in Nicaragua is the basis of all social life, and women often go weeks or even months at a time without ever socializing with anyone outside the family. A woman's life is largely spent indoors, frequently mopping the floor (which any self-respecting housekeeper does twice a day in that dusty country). Uncles, male cousins and their friends show up, get fed, and are often alone with female relatives. This is also a society where men are sanctioned for trying to fuck anything female that moves, as represented by this joke I learned there: What did the Nica father say to his son? Son, you can't fuck every woman, but you must at least try.
Do the math, and the report that these girls are often pregnant with their own brothers and sisters is all too believable to me.
This is, not surprisingly, compounded by the difficulty in obtaining birth control. Two of my Nica friends, women in their 20s, could not obtain birth control from a Nica pharmacy without showing up with either their boyfriends or their fathers to give consent. And when one of them demanded to have her tubes tied after her second child, the doctor flatly refused because she had no husband to consent and her father wasn't around either. She was 26. I had to bribe him with US dollars to do it.
Finally, there is no substantive social prohibition against older men having sex with 13- 14- 15-year-old girls. One of my thirty-something colleagues at the high school I worked at was fucking a student, and while other teachers tsk tsk-ed about it, he didn't lose his job.
I'll give the Nicas this: at least they don't have the death penalty there.
9
Entre primo y pariente el amor es mas ardiente.
Between cousins and relatives the love burns hotter.
Between cousins and relatives the love burns hotter.
10
My kid and I were talking religious myth a couple years ago and he figured it out right away - "Wait, God makes Satan run hell, right? Sounds like God's the asshole."
13
@5, Gun ownership prevents theocracy? That's the silliest comment I'll read all day. The most gun-lovingest states in the USA are the ones that already have the most theocratic tendencies, and would be the most likely to pass laws (if it weren't for that pesky Roe v. Wade ruling) banning abortion in all cases, no exceptions.
14
@ 2, actually, it IS a stretch to say that a complete, total ban on abortion could happen here. Now, that's not to say that the christianists can't hold sway over abortion - I'd say they already do, given the way they've blocked access in numerous ways - but an outright ban? Not unless they stage a coup.
15
@ 13, keep in mind that Western states are big gun-rights places (including Washington), but they're also the most libertarian minded in the country as well.
Your statement has truth in relation to the South, but not the equally gun-lovin' West.
Your statement has truth in relation to the South, but not the equally gun-lovin' West.
17
Thanks for the illuminating post, TVDinner @8. That last bit about them not having the death penalty was especially interesting. I've always been annoyed by people on the right who pompously call themselves "pro-life" when it comes to abortion, and yet are effectively pro-death in their support of the death penalty.
Say what you will about the reprehensible way they deal with abortion down there, but at least their version of "pro-life" is intellectually consistent (as long as that term doesn't extend to "quality of life for women").
Say what you will about the reprehensible way they deal with abortion down there, but at least their version of "pro-life" is intellectually consistent (as long as that term doesn't extend to "quality of life for women").
19
@13 I didn't say that, I didn't make that point.
When your tantrum is over, I offer that theocracies always make their first act that of disarming the citizenry. Those that do not disarm are recruited or declared enemies.
I'm oversimplifying history but I really have no fear of religious fundamentalists in America taking over with guns. Their methods would be political. Putting the onus on the citizenry to resist. Coups aren't typically performed by the unarmed.
When your tantrum is over, I offer that theocracies always make their first act that of disarming the citizenry. Those that do not disarm are recruited or declared enemies.
I'm oversimplifying history but I really have no fear of religious fundamentalists in America taking over with guns. Their methods would be political. Putting the onus on the citizenry to resist. Coups aren't typically performed by the unarmed.
20
Re: #19: Okay, let me put it simply.
When the separation of church and state collapses in America to the extent that we're looking at here, I'll be one of the first to pick up my guns and defend the Constitution over the Bible. I doubt I'll be alone. Our military men and women swear to defend the former, not the latter.
So there. America. Fuck yeah. Hope that helps clarify my point.
When the separation of church and state collapses in America to the extent that we're looking at here, I'll be one of the first to pick up my guns and defend the Constitution over the Bible. I doubt I'll be alone. Our military men and women swear to defend the former, not the latter.
So there. America. Fuck yeah. Hope that helps clarify my point.
21
Thanks to the anti-abortion laws in Nicaragua, women with ectopic pregnancies can't be treated until after their fallopian tubes have ruptured. Most die. So, no, it's not intellectually consistent, not if you consider women to be human life. Although it sure seems like the Catholic Church doesn't believe it, at least not after females are born.
at least their version of "pro-life" is intellectually consistent (as long as that term doesn't extend to "quality of life for women").
Thanks to the anti-abortion laws in Nicaragua, women with ectopic pregnancies can't be treated until after their fallopian tubes have ruptured. Most die. So, no, it's not intellectually consistent, not if you consider women to be human life. Although it sure seems like the Catholic Church doesn't believe it, at least not after females are born.
23
@18: the Catholic Church is strongly anti-death-penalty. No inconsistency there.
Thanks for your post, TVDinner. Very interesting stuff.
Thanks for your post, TVDinner. Very interesting stuff.
25
The U.S. is getting closer and closer to becoming Nicaragua. Pharmacies are refusing to sell birth control and condoms. Ob/Gyns can't perform legal, necessary medical procedures without being vilified and harassed. Did you know that if you were (3rd trimester) pregnant and your life was in danger that there are only two doctors left in the country that would terminate the pregnancy to save your life? These are the people who killed Dr. Tiller. They are crazy and they want to return us to the stone age.
26
@25: yucca, you're absolutely right to be outraged. But we are a long, loooooooooong, way from becoming Nicaragua. Long way. Really, really long way.
27
God hates women. Being the alpha and omega, He never had a mother. Probably feels abandoned and betrayed. Poor God.
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