Maybe Michael Novak should have paid attention to what Popes John Paul and Benedict actually did and said about the Iraq War instead of what he fantasizes they should have said or done.  Continuing to snub Condi Rice five years after the war started is not exactly the action of someone who thinks the Iraq War was hunky-dory.

Children after 1973 are prevented from feeling that they are gifts of God by the large figure blocking that sun—their mother, with the power to have turned thumbs down on their very existence. Children do not feel that they depend on the will of God but on the will of their mother.

Existential terror: DO NOT WANT!

Children after 1973 are prevented from feeling that they are gifts of God by the large figure blocking that sun—their mother, with the power to have turned thumbs down on their very existence.

Had Novak any interest in speaking truthfully there’d be a full stop just after “mother”. Or he’d have been less mincing with his words than “the power to have turned thumbs down on their very existence”- “..their mother, with the full agency of some kind of human being who has sexual and emotional needs and desires, and a will of her own as though she is some kind of man”.

A giant mother figure (blocking out the very sun!) who coulda killed you (and stands between you and your gift-from-Godiness!) is classic. Man the firehoses! Kill the giant witch!

I always loved the “abortions kill X million babies a year!!1!oneone!eleventyone!” argument when explaining why an individual is anti-choice and yet still pro-war.  It almost seems like the guy is making the claim that if abortion just killed - say - a fraction of the unborn, forsaken souls that then they’d be less against it.  Or, you know, if the war in question could just break that 1 million / year threshold, the abortionists might consider taking time off from their busy schedules to object, at least in principle.

Nothing says “I value each and every human life” like throwing up your noses at piles of corpses because they aren’t stacked high enough.

That last paragraph reminds me, more than anything, of the quasi-fascist anti-choice masses I was required to attend in Catholic school. 

Blegh.  That is all.

Mnemmy, Michael Novak knows what Wojtyla thought of the war:  IIRC he was sent by the U.S. to the Vatican to change that Pope’s mind.  Remember Gore Vidal’s apt words to John McLaughlin on tv? “You lie, Priest:  think to your immortal soul.”

So, the young find abortion abhorrent. That means in 10-15 years there will be a natural decrease in abortions because all those youngsters won’t be having any. Therefore there’s no need to take extreme measures to keep people from having access to abortions, since they won’t be wanting them anyway. In fact, I think we on the pro-choice side should be 100% in favor of people not having abortions when they don’t want to have abortions.

I know, my logic is no match for their stupid.

(and, um, the Catholic church is actually opposed to capital punishment, too.)

Maybe we need to just frame the whole abortion issue in terms of war for these guys?

I mean, abortion is just ousting a unelected dictator who invaded a country and co-opted all its resources, right? Maybe we should change the name of “D&C;” to “shock and awe” and call the embryo “collateral damage”.

Or hell, just tell them the embryo is being waterboarded, and we all know that’s cool, right?

Seriously, I don’t get the existential terror that so many anti-choicers feel at the very thought that their mothers might have aborted them.  So what?  You wouldn’t be here.  And?

I wonder if these same folks are also terrified of death, and if that fear isn’t what, in part, fuels their anti-choice beliefs, because to them, there’s nothing scarier than non-existence.

I wonder if these same folks are also terrified of death, and if that fear isn’t what, in part, fuels their anti-choice beliefs, because to them, there’s nothing scarier than non-existence.

I’m guessing yes, especially since these are the exact same people who think that there is no worse punishment than the death penalty and that no one should ever be taken off life support equipment ever. 

Personally, if I had to choose between spending 50 years in an 8x10 foot cell until I died a natural death and immediate death, I might choose immediate death, but they don’t seem to see it that way.

Children do not feel that they depend on the will of God but on the will of their mother.

Know why that is, Michael? BECAUSE IT’S FUCKING TRUE. Children do *not* depend on the *will* of god. they’ve always depended on their parent(s) for resources and protection until they’re capable of doing it on their own. Then usually they depend on themselves (or, in some cases, their parents still).

My gawd, the stupid. And how exactly doesn’t a woman choosing abortion fall under the *will* of god? what if god had intended the woman to choose an abortion?

Sounds like someone’s got womb-envy.

The more available abortion is, the more likely it will be that children who are born are wanted and therefore will not have to worry about whether their mother wanted them.  Clearly, in a society were abortion is available without restriction or social penalty, if a woman did not abort, she did want the child and would consider the child to be a gift rather than penence or punishment or duty.

I absolutely feel exactly the opposite from Novak on this one.

If I thought my mother had given birth to me only because she didn’t have easy access to safe abortion, I would always feel a terrible sense of guilt in her presence.  I would feel even more so in the presence of my youngest child, who was born from an unplanned pregnancy that I know for a fact his birth mother CHOSE to continue.

Seriously Auguste, If you had been aborted, would the world be a better place?? We liberals have to start getting our shit together as it concerns common sense. Abortion sucks, and you know it. Babies are our future, duh.

“Abortion sucks, and you know it. Babies are our future, duh.”

By that philosophy, hormonal birth control, condoms, sterilization, and copper IUDs also suck.

On more and more refrigerators across America, photos of brothers and sisters in mommy’s womb from just a few weeks after conception are already encouraging children more and more to find abortion abhorrent. The young easily identify with their siblings with tiny fingers and toes in the womb, and perceive with dark dread what it would be like if they had been aborted.

Sure, when it’s framed in little kid gibberish- “Wooky here at the eensy widdle baybee!  How cuuute!  Won’t you just wuv your little bubbie or sissie?”, kids are going to identify with the embryo.  And if you showed them a magnification of some bacteria and said, “Awww.  Wooky at the eensy widdle buggies.  Aren’t they cuuute?  Don’t you want to pet the buggies?” They would identify with THAT, too.  Does that mean we should ban antibiotics?  Parents try to get kids hyped/accepting the idea of a sibling, because quite a few kids actually resent the hell out of ‘em once thay are born.  Based on that fact, should we carry out widespread infanticide to placate jealous older siblings?

And “dark dread” over the thought of being aborted?  If some ghoulish assholes are plastering their fridge with ultrasound pics, and telling their kids that some people want to kill those embryos, and by extention, wanted to kill them when they were an embryo, but they, the parents, heroically stepped in and prevented such mayhem… Sheesh.  Anyone remember Mommie Dearest?

Children after 1973 are prevented from feeling that they are gifts of God by the large figure blocking that sun—their mother, with the power to have turned thumbs down on their very existence.

Well, she’s the one who turned her “thumbs up” to their existence to begin with, so it only stands to reason she would have the oposite power, too.  It sounds like what they really want to do is turn back the clock to pre-science days, where no one was quite sure how babies got here, but they all felt like it must be a “miracle”.

What brain barf.

In addition, those who call the Iraq war “unjust” are entitled to their opinion, but they have no serious Catholic authority. Neither the pope nor the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith nor the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops, even when some of them opposed it as imprudent, have ever called the Iraq war unjust.

yeah, you know WHY, Novak? Because in accordance with doctrine, They aren’t allowed to just vote against a war and be peaceful about it. Every catholic serviceman in the US, possibly every catholic citizen, would be required to renounce our standing government, and possibly go into military service AGAINST the US or face excommunication.

they also stopped just short of declaring it Unjust. John Paul II repeatedly announced even as the invasion was beginning that all other options had not been exhausted, criteria 1 of a Just War. Benedict stated in an interview that due to the effects of modern weaponry, the 4th clause “the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.” may be impossible on it’s face, rendering all modern war unjust.

But then, we know how much Novak cares about human life, what with deliberately running over a 60 year old pedestrian in his Corvette.

their mother, with the power to have turned thumbs down on their very existence.

What?
I’m pretty sure “I brought you into this world and I can take you out of it” is older than Roe.

But then, we know how much Novak cares about human life, what with deliberately running over a 60 year old pedestrian in his Corvette.

Uh, wrong Novak.  And the pedestrian-hitting Novak turns out to have an inoperable brain tumor, which may have affected his driving and led to the accident.

Michael Novak is plenty enough douchebag to go around without dragging terminally ill douchebags into it, too.

Terminal Novak doesn’t get a pass just for having cancer. the witness was pretty clear about the man being thrown up onto the hood and therefore hard to miss. hit? sure, cancer maybe?
run? not so much.

still, yeah, wrong novak, true.

doesn’t change that he’s wrong about the Popes not condemning the war without equivocation.

<quote>Seriously Auguste, If you had been aborted, would the world be a better place?? We liberals have to start getting our shit together as it concerns common sense. Abortion sucks, and you know it. Babies are our future, duh. </quote>

Actually, yes. Auguste’s birth caused 9/11 and 2-term-Reagan, Butterfly-like.

If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we’d all have a merry christmas. “aborted fetuses” are hypotheticals. Once they become a person, great, they have value, you can determine if they ended up a net positive or minus on the world. You can distinguish between the Herman Goerings and Nelson Mandelas only after they’ve actually done something.

Hypotheticals do not get priority over reality, no matter how adorable you think that hypothetical is.

Imagine if your parents hadn’t had sex that night nine months before you were born?  You’d never exist!

So really, in order to make sure lives keep existing, you need to make sure YOUR PARENTS FUCK CONSTANTLY.  You gotta help all your unborn widdle sibs!  So lube, sex swings, whatever it takes Novak, get’em bonin’!

Having been born past 1973 I’m not terribly worried about my mom having had the choice to abort me.  If I hadn’t been born, then I wouldn’t really have an opinion about it, would I?  Of course, now that I am alive I’d prefer to stay that way.

And even if my mother didn’t have the choice to abort me or not, there were many years where my life completely depended upon my parents.  They could choose to not feed me or choose to shake me to death or choose to leave me tied up in the closet for a weekend.

Catholics are just so insane over abortion, it makes no sense.

Sorry about the threadjack, but I was just diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy tonight - and the Catholic hospital I went to for the ultrasound tried to admit me immediately and do a tubal removal.  I asked for a medically induced abortion - I fit the protocol - and their Doctors *refused* to discuss it with me, telling me my only option was immediate surgery - no 2nd opinion, no medcation, and certainly not a consult with the secular hospital a mile away.  Thankfully, as the ER nurse was about to shuttle me from the waiting room to be seen, my physician called, and told me I could get the medication tomorrow a.m., first thing, and didn’t need emergency surgery.

Long story short, is technically I’m having an “abortion” tomorrow, instead of surgery today.  Somehow this makes a big fucking difference for the Catholics, and once being one myself, makes me in some state of mortal sin.  For what?  So I have a less invasive procedure, which should not decrease my odds of a wanted child in the future?  Just another demonstration of the Taliban-like crazy that apparently is at the core of “Catholic”!

BTW, anybody who thinks that young children innately “identify” with the prospect of a newborn sibling (whether via a sonogram photo or just by the presentation of, “hey, look, it’s your new baby brother!”) has got to be either an only child or a youngest child. 

Because, seriously, I have 3 younger siblings, and while I might have been clueless enough to be conned into being “excited” the first time around (I wasn’t even 2 yet, so Neko Onna is on the nose), that was pretty much the end of it.  Well, OK, by the time my last brother was born I was excited.  At the prospect of a baby sister.  When it was revealed that she would never exist, I was back to being sort of begrudgingly frustrated-on-the-DL about the whole concept of yet another annoying little brat breaking my toys and getting all the attention.

Foilhatgirl. That’s terrible and I’m glad you got things sorted out. Did they really want to remove a Fallopain tube? And wouldn’t removing the tube destroy the embryo anyway same as whatever subsequent treatment you got? Why is it OK for the Catholics to kill the embryo with surgery, but not for you to get this other treatment? Oh, I forgot; Double Effect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_double_effect

This is the stupidest and most contrived moral reasoning ever. It lets you be all absolutely strict and then weasle out of your stated principles if you rig the game and lie to yourself. Why not just write those “exceptions” into the official moral code, or just switch to a utilitarian standard?

It’s horrible they would take one of your fallopian tubes and kill an embryo anyway instead of just killing an embryo. Having just one tube would reduce your fertility, and what would happen if that one is a bit blocked ? Too bad for you. You would just have to hope for the best (which often happens) or go for in vitro. How can they get away with this?

Truly, I cannot wrap my mind around the narcissism that is the core of the forced-gestation proponent. It is obvious they do not love their mothers, are incapable of loving anyone but themselves. How is it a loving thing to DEMAND that your mother risk her health, her life, endure permanent damage to her body, along with the agony of labor or recovery from a C-section in order to bring life to the apparently special little snowflake that is them? Or maybe they were simply raised wrong. I was taught that one never EXPECTS or DEMANDS a gift, not even the gift of one’s life, which is something that only a mother can bestow. I was also taught that panty-sniffing was the nadir of crass behavior. They lose on both counts and, in short, are despicably rude and hateful human beings.

For the annals of irony: The forced-birther, Bushco-loving, Iraq War-supporting, forced-birther Catholic ninny I went to nursing school with flunked out the second semester because she couldn’t pass the Maternal/Child component. Ahahahahah!

Bacopa -

Yes, they really wanted to remove the tube via immediate surgery, the Dr. was telling me this in the ultrasound room, and when I repeatedly questioned her about medical treatment (i.e. methotreaxate), she refused to discuss it with me.  I’m sorry - but I’m not a child, and won’t do business with such a physician if I have a choice!  Fortunately, my symptoms are not acute, I’m an uppity feminist, and have a great Dr. who called back in under an hour, despite not being on-call, to get me out of that situation.  If I was going into shock from blood loss, then stupid “double effect” or not, tubal surgery of some kind would’ve been on tap, but there’s simply no need for my body to undergo additional trauma so some Doctor (that I don’t even know) can feel better about their relationship with their mysogynistic, irrational imaginary friend in the sky!

Bacopa, because then they’d have to admit there was such a think as Just Abortion, as their is Just War, and the woman-hating Roman Catholic Church just can’t have that! Eve, after all, was the cause of the Downfall of Man by convincing Adam to eat fruit from The Tree of Knowledge. Therefore, all woman must suffer for Eve’s sin. They even came up with an overwhelmingly stupid reasoning that the Catholic sheep swallowed hook, line and sinker, The Immaculate Conception, to set Mary, Mother of Jesus, apart from the rest of us dirty whores. Many non-Catholics think The Immaculate Conception refers to the birth of Jesus, but it actually refers to Mary’s birth. Mary, as the tale goes, was conceived wholly without sin and, thus, was not like the rest of us mortals; only in this way could Mary possibly be deigned fit to bring forth the spawn of God. If Mary was a mere mortal, human woman like the rest of us, then the RCC certainly could not perpetuate its “Taliban-like crazy” misogyny because women would think - and rightly so - that they too, as mere mortal women, have the capability to bring forth divine life and are, thus, the equal of if not superior to males. And we all know the RCCWould never allow THAT.

Bleehh! I have despised the RCC since I was a wee lass and delving into the depraved, misogynistic morass that is Catholic doctrine makes my blood boil. Grrr!

Slightly OT, but reading this rant reminded me of the sheer horror I felt when I read this opinion piece in The Age this weekend:

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/greenies-concern-misplaced-even-morally-repugnant-20080809-3sov.html

which bizarrely tries to make a desire for a better environmental future equivalent to a woman’s right to choose ... or, something, it’s actually kind of incoherent.

Neko Onna, were you aware that there are, in fact, fuzzy plush dolls of cute widdle microorganisms?

http://www.giantmicrobes.com/

“Children after 1973 are prevented from feeling that they are gifts of God by the large figure blocking that sun—their mother, with the power to have turned thumbs down on their very existence.”

As mir mentioned above, there are some very . . . interesting . . . psychological/psycho-theological issues screaming out here.

Great, (among other things) the giant castrating witch-monster updated for the 21st century.  Yippee.  I mean, aren’t we done with this shit already? 
(There’s also the frenzied denial of natural, well, maternity - Catrina hits the nail on the head: it’s womb-envy, on a cosmic scale.  And also the frantic pushing-away of the icky, dark, threateningly organic and contingent ‘female’ world for the pure, logical, manly sun-lit (but imperiled) one . . .  (hey, I’m not saying this actually makes sense/is sane)

Also: do young kids actually think that way?  I’m fairly doubtful, both in terms of ‘OMG! The giant Mommy-Monster blocking out the Sun (Son) could have aborted me! My existence is just an accident*, not a comforting God-Given-Gift certainty!’ and the ‘Oh, my mommy must have definitely chosen to have me; I am a loved and wanted child!’  I mean, I’m sure there are individual exceptions, but . . .

* A (foolishly) unexpected intersection with anti-science fanaticism: much of the fingers-in-ears opposition to modern evolutionary biology (and all the rest of modern science that has to be ignored or junked to do so)  seems to be rooted in this same frantic existentialist terror - OMG!  I can’t be just an accident!!  I can’t even be the product of a divinely ordained biological process of ongoing creation!  God has to have reached out and specifically created me Me ME with an absolutely specific plan and purpose.  Otherwise everything is meaningless!!!  And OMG I CAN’T DIE!!!

Etc.  Rinse, repeat.

  As a violation of natural right, abortion is even more extreme than slavery.

Novak doesn’t believe that freedom is a natural right. Who could have guessed?

>Children after 1973 are prevented from feeling that they are gifts of God by the large figure blocking >that sun—their mother, with the power to have turned thumbs down on their very existence.

Damn those women!!! Damn them!
How DARE they give birth to us after… 1973…?
I’m am ALL pissed off about her DARING to GIVE BIRTH when she could have had an abortion?!?!

RRARRR!!!

/snark

Um, Mommy *is* the sun. Small children do not think “What if Mommy had aborted me?” They *might* think “What if Mommy leaves me in the shopping mall? I can’t find her! Waah!” but they do not contemplate sophisticated what-ifs about their own existence. Mommy is the most important human in existence and the source of all goodness, as well as the source of some badness. Given the choice between Mommy and the sun, small children will take Mommy. Just because you, adult male commentator, resent your mother for the power she had over you when you were little, doesn’t mean actual little people resent their mothers for the same reason. They have to grow up first.

BTW, my mother had the option to abort me, despite my being conceived before Roe vs. Wade. Although my grandfather was a good Catholic, he was also a middle-class dad, and when his daughter ended up unmarried and pregnant by a boy from the wrong side of the tracks, he asked her if she wanted an abortion. She said “hell no!”, married the guy and had two more kids with him, and that is why I am spared any guilt over her multiple health problems, which probably all started when she had me, or at least were exacerbated by me. It is a feeling of great joy to know that your mom *could* have aborted you, that she was specifically offered the option, and she said “no, I *want* this baby.” Why do all these assholes focus on the possibility that their mother *might* have said no, rather than the obvious fact that she did say yes? Maybe they feel deep down like she should have said no, and are displacing their guilt at existing?

Also, in fact, she *did* abort a child before me—she was raped as a teenager. Had that pregnancy come to term, I would not exist. Therefore, abortion is necessary because without it I wouldn’t be here, and *I*, in fact, am the reason you all exist. Yes, I’m the only one in the universe and everything exists because of me. What’s that you say, solipsistic fallacy? Well, you won’t be laughing when I die and you all cease to exist, jerkoffs!

No, seriously. Given how many women have abortions and *then* go on to have wanted babies… their argument bears no resemblance to Earth logic. Millions of unwanted babies would exist, having miserable lives, and millions of wanted babies would disappear in a puff of logic if we could retroactively prevent every abortion, ever. (People aren’t logical about this shit, though. My ex, an otherwise smart man, used to resent my grandmother for forcing his mother to abort “his older brother Jimmy” even though, had Jimmy come to exist, my ex would not have. Now *that’s* kind of abusive—filling a little boy’s head with the stories of the older brother he would have had if his mean grandma hadn’t forced mommy to get an abortion, so that even when he’s an adult and can logically figure out that there is no What If scenario where both he and Jimmy could have existed, he still resents grandma. Admittedly forcing your teen daughter to get an abortion is totally wrong, but you don’t need to make your kid your confidante in the matter.)

It is a feeling of great joy to know that your mom *could* have aborted you, that she was specifically offered the option, and she said “no, I *want* this baby.” Why do all these assholes focus on the possibility that their mother *might* have said no, rather than the obvious fact that she did say yes?

Maybe it’s the realization that their mothers resent the fuck out of them and hate them with every fiber or their beings? They all seem pretty convinced that their own mothers would have aborted them given a choice, so I’m assuming that their own mothers tell them so at every opportunity.

Well, I think you guys have all pretty much covered the bases on this one.  Its a truly disturbing essay and the funniest and scariest part is the image of the threatening mother goddess blocking out the sun.  (oh, and caren animorphic pancakes that is truly an *astounding* ultrasound!)  It makes no sense on its own terms, of course as everyone has pointed out.  Even if you believed in g-d—especially if you believed in an all powerful g-d why would his writ stop running in 1973? Is the idea that before 1973 all children born were born with a real, g-d given purpose but afterwards they were just the playthings of women who wanted to be mothers and who set out deliberately to have children? (shock! horror!) To believe that you’d have to believe that g-d died in 1973 and was literally replaced by individual women.  So the g-d who “knew your face before you were born” and who chose to make sure *you* came into this world even if he had to get your father to rape your mother to do it suddenly lost all his potent power and gave the job of deciderating who should live and who should die to suburban white women?  And that was a bad thing?  Oh, even to try to make sense of this infantile rage that *mommy wanted to have a baby and wasn’t forced to by an imaginary higher power* makes your head spin.  yes! Yes! children born after 1973 were *wanted children* and those children presumably grow up knowing their mommies and daddies loved them enough to bring them into this world with care aforethought.  What a crime! Many’s the time my children have sobbed themselves to sleep asking “why mommy, why did you do it? why did you love having babies and love having toddlers and devote your life to educating, clothing and feeding us? And what about those other pregnancies you didn’t have since you were using contraception? what about those imaginary siblings I could have been fighting over food scraps with???”

aimai

Funny—I should think that would make a kid feel more wanted and special to know that Mommy didn’t have to have them, but chose to, because she, you know, wanted them. How anyone could take comfort from the knowledge that their mother might not have wanted to have them, but did because she was forced to, is beyond me. It seems to me that the only thing that could make someone prefer the second scenario over the first is if they hated and feared their mother (and women in general) so much that they didn’t care how little she wanted them as long as it wasn’t her choice to make.

Well, karalora, its a seriously diseased world view but not really unexpected. The person who wakes up every day, or any day, and wonders or asserts that g-d put me here for a purpose! dammit! is generally a person who isn’t loved enough, and doesn’t love themself very much, but feels at a loss, scared, and alone.  If there ever was a child in this world who needed to be told that g-d loves them, that child needed to know mommy loved them first and didn’t hear it.  Really, the whole paragraph from Novak is just pathetically sad. He must have been a very frightened, lonely, and rejected little boy; one for whom the catholic church’s windy assertions that “god wanted it this way, novak” must have been as good as it gets.

aimai

Yes, they’ve got it backwards.

Mommy is not a substitute for God. God is a substitute for Mommy.

People with an adequately loving Mommy don’t *need* to feel that at least God loves them and wanted them, because they *know* Mommy loved them and wanted them.

(Not to say that all religious people had unloving or inadequate Mommies, but religious people with loving Mommies don’t feel that it was important that God force Mommy into having a baby she didn’t want, since they know that, being wanted, they would have existed even if God did not force Mommy. In fact, religious people with loving Mommies probably love their Mommies themselves and would not like it if anyone, including God, forced something she didn’t want on their Mommy.)

I also want to add that it is incredibly insulting, both to loving mothers and to the children they love, to insinuate that that love doesn’t count toward defining the children as loved, wanted, and valuable. Of course, asshats like Novak don’t care about women and children, but I thought it bore saying.

no matter how adorable you think that hypothetical is.

This is a little off topic, but I just have to mention that I think babies are really ugly.  Toddlers and older children are adorable, but there’s something about the baldness and the pudginess of babies that I really can’t stand.

I suspect a child born to a mother who doesn’t want them and was forced to give birth to them might find the concept that they are a “gift of God” to fall a little hollow.  The “blocking out the sun” concept does not go away but rather grows infinitely greater when abortion is removed from the equation.

karpad, Bob Novak has a brain tumor. Brain tumors are known to mess up our perceptions. The fact that he didn’t notice something so obvious is consistent with some types of brain tumors and might have led him to be checked.

Back on topic. I was looking for what the Popes did say about the war in Iraq and found this place. It notes that Pope John Paul II said that the Iraq war was a defeat for humanity. Sounds like he was really against it. Oh and note the saying at the site of this Catholic organization (they are in the Catholic Worker’s tradition): ‘Consistent Ethic of Life’. The exact words that Novak uses. Hmm (this group is very much anit-abortion, but focuses more on pacifism and working with the poor).

Why is the column on the American Enterprise Institute’s website?  Aren’t they busy enough ginning up outrage over multibillionaires having to pay cabin boy taxes?

Children after 1973 are prevented from feeling that they are gifts of God by the large figure blocking that sun—their mother, with the power to have turned thumbs down on their very existence.

OMG, your mother might have actually wanted you! The horror! Being deprived of the opportunity to feel resented by your mother for ruining her life forever! How do young people stand it?

The young easily identify with their siblings with tiny fingers and toes in the womb, and perceive with dark dread what it would be like if they had been aborted.

Have to say, the first time I realized that there was a “before me” and an “after me”, and that the same held true for everything, up to and including time itself, and that everything that was existed only by the most amazing of coincidences left me gawping in awe at the size and sparkly brilliance of the universe.

Neko Onna, on bacteria seen through a microscope: “Awww.  Wooky at the eensy widdle buggies.  Aren’t they cuuute?  Don’t you want to pet the buggies?”

Heh. A friend’s child has a plush model of some interesting looking plague bazillus. It is cute, but I haven’t heard the child (nor the mother) refuse antibiotics yet…

Bacopa: It’s horrible they would take one of your fallopian tubes and kill an embryo anyway instead of just killing an embryo. [...] How can they get away with this?

Human sacrifice.

Auguste: Yes, I was thinking of that quote, too.