fuckers.

a choice quote from the times article, comparing abortion legislation to environmental regulation (!?!?):

"I don't understand," said Senator Peter G. Fitzgerald, Republican of Illinois, "how those who can hear the howl of a wolf or the squeal of a dolphin can be deaf to the cry of an unborn child."

boy, does that ever muddle the debate in an infinitude of ways. i'm disgusted that fitzgerald, deaf to the howls of wolves, the squeals of dolphins, and the cries of born children living in poverty, not to mention every woman on earth (whom he and his ilk seem to regard, rather premodernly, as empty vessels), can work himself up to the impressive level of cynicism necessary to make such an argument.

let's be clear: "partial-birth" is a term invented by opponents of choice in order to demonize a procedure that no one really "chooses" to undergo. that is to say, the fetuses aborted in late-term abortions are generally inviable in any case, and often a serious threat to the life or health of the mother, as well. late-term abortions are incredibly difficult; they are not, as many an anti would have it, infanticides committed by the criminally lazy or the morally vacant. it seems to me an impossibly cruel act to mock the suffering of women who, for one reason or another, needed to have this procedure, by labelling it what it is not and casting the decisions surrounding it as simpler than they inevitably are.

...but i suppose lots of issues seem simple when fetuses are people, women are things, and you're thoroughly convinced of your own Godlike righteousness.