Wonkette
Over on the spastic Corner blog at National Review Online, famous conservative Ed Whelan has brought up a very interesting point about the great hypocrite, Barack Obama: that if Roe v. Wade had come to pass but a few Earth-years earlier, the terrible fetus Barack Obama would have almost surely been aborted faster than your average prep school broken-condom demon zygote. Because his mother was a dumb feminist liberal, of course, and all she wanted to do was kill her Barry before too many of his cells duplicated into viable human features. Think about it. It means… nothing. This argument is balls.
OMFG read this, what the hell:
Nearly 48 years ago, a young woman, not yet 18, became pregnant in her freshman year of college. Living in a time and place in which abortion was generally illegal, she proceeded to marry the father of her child and gave birth to a son. Perhaps she would have done so irrespective of the abortion laws at the time, even if, say, she lived in a legal culture that celebrated abortion as a fundamental right. Very possibly not. (I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of pregnant college freshmen who abort their pregnancies, but indirect indications suggest that it’s very high.)
Barack Obama may actually believe, as he stated yesterday, that Roe v. Wade “was rightly decided.” But it may be very lucky for him, as the son born of that woman, that it hadn’t been decided a dozen or so years earlier.
That Obama may owe his very life to a pre-Roe legal regime that banned abortion is, to be sure, not necessarily a reason that he should favor that regime (though I can’t help noting that Justice Thomas’s critics recklessly accuse him of hypocrisy for opposing racial-preference plans that they say he benefited from). But it ought to lead Obama and others to think more carefully about the valuable role that protective abortion laws play.
Indeed, liberals, think of all the other awesome people that have probably been smushed up by some doctor with a vacuum ever since Roe v. Wade. Could there possibly have been a Jesus II that was unwittingly trashed? Or a Mitt Romney SPACE VERSION? Just think about how sad all you liberals would be now if Obama’s mother had put the kibosh on Fetus Barry before you had any idea who he was. You would cry all day. You would CRY ALL DAY like little dumb regulation fairies, which you are.
Former Fetus Barack Obama [The Corner via Brian Beutler]
“(I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of pregnant college freshmen who abort their pregnancies, but indirect indications suggest that it’s very high.)”
I have no facts BUT I KNOW I’M RIGHT.
Right, becuase pro-choice means all men, women, and children have to have abortions immediately.
(Of course, if Obama’s mother had been a wealthy, white child of privilege, she could have gotten one easily anyway. A lot of family doctors being paid off back in the day.)
See, them wimmins was happier with less rights. Hey, isn’t that basically the same argument southern whites used to use about slavery? That’s modern conservatism for ya — building a bridge to the status quo ante.
vintageways: That’s worked for the Bush Administration quite well. Say it enough, it becomes fact!
I don’t know if Barry’s mom would have aborted Barry, but I’m pretty sure I know whose momma drank, smoke and ate lead paint chips by the dozen while she carried her baby to term.
Shouldn’t they be sad she didn’t?
Even if, say, quite possibly, it may be, that indirect indications suggest, it is very likely, you are quite the asshat.
As a survivor of America’s Abortion Holocaust, I could no more vote for a liberal abortionist than a Jewish Holocaust survivor could vote for a Nazi…
“Indirect indications suggest” also that McCain is a cross-dressing fireman from Burkina Faso and that in the year 2088 the world will be destroyed in a collision with Uranus.
SayItWithWookies: Decisions are too tricky for teh Negroez and teh Wimmens. They do better when teh rich white menz make all the decisions.
vintageways: I have no facts, but there was that one night freshman year… that horrible, horrible night. (sobs)
What the holy hell is an “indirect indication”?
That’s the most bullshit euphamism for “really there’s no way of knowing but without this my argument is totally worthless so let’s invent something that sounds vaguely scientific.”
SayItWithWookies:
Yes Ed Whelan has a dream too:
“I have a dream that fetuses with a touch of the swirl will one day die in a nation where they will not be aborted for medical or personal reasons but for the color of their skin. “
Also, if, as this article suggests, college women are responsible for most abortions due to their high rate of having abortions, then shouldn’t we just ban women from higher education? Problem solved!
Ed Whelan’s thought process: “College chicks are hot sluts, but they find me old and repugnant. Sigh. Ize go hates on Barry, who those college chicks love more than me.”
Oh… oh C’MON. JEEBUS. Fuckin’ people.
Also by Ed Welhan: If I had a brother, would he like cheese?
I guess he missed the “direct indications” that if she had wanted to abort him pre-Roe, she statistically probably would have attempted to do so anyway. You know, with the coathangers and the hemorraging. You sir are competing with John Edwards for the Biggest Douche in the Universe award.
But, like, maybe Jeffey Dahmer would have been aborted. Or a future member of the KKK. Take the good with the bad.
Hawaii was one of the first states to legalize abortion-on-demand by 1970 - i.e., before Roe v. Wade. This implies that Hawaiians had a more progressive attitude regarding abortion, and I suspect that that it wouldn’t have been very difficult for Ms. Dunham to have found a sympathetic doctor willing to perform a safe abortion quietly in 1960.
Obviously she chose not to. What a concept.
In short, history is both fun and informative, and the NRO can and should go eat a bag of dicks.
Source: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/facts/abortiontimeline.html
I believe that if we end abortions the rescued fetuses (fetusi?) will greet us as liberators, the sun will shine out of all our touches (touchusi?) and oil will go back to $25/bll! In that context, who needs your damn facts and statistics?
Ed’s just lucky his mom didn’t have precognition. I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of pregnant women who abort their pregnancies because they know they’re going to give birth to fucking assholes like Ed Whelan. But indirect indications suggest that it’s very high
This is why no useful person has been born since 1973. Apart of course from Hayden Panettiere .
I can’t even put myself in a place where I would even have this thought process, to even think up something like this, it’s really twisted. Oh! The Repulicanity!
The only explanation for Ed Whelan is fetal alchohol poisoning.
since most pregnancies are miscarried anyways, why does jesus love people like john wayne gacy, hitler and all those billions of homosexuals more than unborn fetuses with their tiny feet?
THEY HAVE TINY FEET!
2goats: oh dear, terrifying image of a hoard of foetuses cheering.
There’s indirect indication that I will abort Ed Whelan’s face if I pass him on the street.
…geez, when right-winger go off into hypothetical land they really lose there minds! I heard his next article will be about a cyborg from the future, that goes back in time to kill Barack Obama before he can lead man-kind in the war against an evil machine army, controlled by an artificial intelligence.
Let us meet to abort the National Review.
I have no statistics to support my concluions, but Ed Whelan should eat a bag of dicks.
AngryBlakGuy: cue Terminator music….
This is the most ridiculous argument EVAH. Any one of us could have been aborted or miscarried or not lived through our childhoods (assuming that we are all adults here - big assumption, i know) - regardless of the laws on the books of that specific year. Barack Obama lived because he…lived - through all of that. Maybe he also lived through a horrible allergic reaction to a bee sting too, or perhaps was caught by a bystander when he fell off of a Ferris Wheel (damn Carnies!) - do we ban the bees and the Carnies too because they also could have meant the demise of Hopey?
At the same time, however, if I was a Republican wanting to run for office some day I’d stay away from fighter planes - just sayin’…
You’d like to think they’re trying their hand at alternate history fiction at the National Review, but what’s really going on is an elaborate stupid motherfucker alive contest.
His conclusion is pure gold. He is trying to get you to do this: Ask yourself if you would like to have been aborted. If you are pro-choice, and answer no to this question, then you are a hypocrite.
Of course, this conflates being pro-choice with being pro-abortion, which is like saying being pro-life is being pro-unwanted pregnancies. I wonder what Ed’s position is on teaching birth control, or giving condoms to teenagers?
How out of touch from reality can you be? Does he even know how an abortion works? It is fucking degrading and humiliating procedure. But I suspect that Ed thinks anything involving a vagina is degrading and humiliating, so this little data point won’t bother him much.
too bad the panama canal zone didn’t have a roe v. wade or we could’ve aborted walnuts.
I thought conservatives only opposed aborting white babies.
Dientes:
Yeah, exactly. Sooooo… if say Obama had been aborted, he wouldn’t be winning the presidential election, and then we might not be getting a president who strongly advocates choice, which in turn might frustrate the aims of anti-abortion advocates like Ed Whelan.
Sounds like an airtight bit of reasoning for Whelan’s cause to me.
Well, the Hawaiian coat hanger shortage of 1960 is well documented, so clearly this argument is a teeny bit suspect.
BTW , abortion is NOT LEGAL in Saudia Arabia. Pro-lifers caused 911! FUCK YOU!
Rodney Badger: Not to mention that if you were aborted, you would have no fucking stance on the issue one way or the other.
We need to have some kind of “The Corner” Ad Lib Contest:
I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of group of people you hate who detestable act, but euphemism for bullshit guess suggest that it’s very high.
How did Ed Whalen avoid the speculum?
I know that this was an important time in our history we should not forget, but this picture is disturbing and you should not use it. Or something.
Actually, I kind of like the glowy demon fetus eyes.
Via Brian Beutler? No fair! I emailed this story to tips@wonkette like two days ago.
tunamelt: Be nice to Dave Bowman, and stay the hell off Europa.
What if Ed Whelan was an aborted fetus? Would the world be a better place? Is he in fact an aborted fetus? Is it possible that this aborted fetus can still put words together in a sentence?
vintageways: Yeah, it’s a paradox built on the assumption that slutty white college girls with nigger babies will always choose abortion. Therefore, if there was justice in this world, Barack Obama would have been dead before he was alive. Nevermind the fact that this sort of just world requires legal abortions. Logical conclusions are for baby-killing terrorist sympathizers.
Anyway, personally, I would still vote for Undead Fetus Obama over gramps.
Ed is a neon ball-sac. Is he willing to raise everyone who’s unwanted? No.
So, Ed, SHUT IT.
If George W. Bush hadn’t paid for the illegal abortion of the 15 year old girl he got pregnant in 1970 we would have a 38 year old George Bush III ready to take over the family business (according to Larry Flynt).
True story: My grandfather advised my grandmother to have an abortion when she became pregnant with my mother at age 38. My grandmother chose not to. This was in the rural midwest in 1940. In conclusion: Ed Whelan can eat a bag of dicks.
Please Bristol, abort your kid so the world is saved from another Palin offspring.
Canmon (the Inadequate): That was before he was born again, so it doesn’t count.
Ed Whelan’s “indirect indications”: every coed he was ever intimate with (which in Ed’s case might mean just trading glances) immediately got a D&C.
Quod Erat Demonstrandum.
Rodney Badger: …frankly I think you are reading way too much into this shit-heads delusional arguement. Roe v. Wade has been around for over 30 years and miraculously women(18yr old college students included) do get pregnant and do choose to have the baby. His whole rationale is to conflate that 18 year old college students will choose an abortion if given the chance which is simply unfounded and dare I say false. The arguement is flawed on its face because he is attempting give an absolute answer on a multifaceted and dynamic issue that simply cannot be answered. Which in the end makes the entire arguement pointless, kinda like arguing “what came first the chicken or the egg”. Damn it, now you got me analyzing this crap!!!
I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of goats that Ed Whelan has blown, but indirect indications suggest that it’s very high.
If you ban abortions, it just makes it harder for women to get them, but if you need a goddamn abortion you find a way to get one. All banning abortions does is make them expensive/dangerous/inconvenient. South Dakota may ban abortions, but that just means that poor women will have to find a way to get to North Dakota or reacquaint themselves with the coat hanger. Keep abortions legal and safe.
And the award for best timing in the history of the universe and/or postwar conservative movement goes to: Christopher Buckley.
Hey … my older sisters, their friends, and girls from our neighborhood all had pre-Roe v. Wade abortions in the 1950s and 1960s. A woman just arranged a three-day Mexican vacation, and brought lots of bribe money with her for the inevitable police raid on the clinic.
Between 1963 and 1973, four young women my family knew — two of my sisters’ friends, one of my friend’s older sisters, and the Golden Girl Berkeley Straight A Beautiful Superachiever Daughter of our neighbors — did not survive the sepsis they developed from abortions performed in “informal” clinics in Northern Mexican border towns.
S.Luggo: Sure, but that’s because most republicans believe in a rape exception.
AngryBlakGuy: There is a lot wrong with Ed Whelan’s little essay. We are both right. He’s an intellectually lazy misogynist. I suspect he is unfamiliar with the sex lives of college coeds, and has been so his entire life. He probably gets all bent out of shape whenever he hears of or has to think about people having sex in college.
And it’s funny that he focuses on college girls. Nowadays most of those little trollops are pretty smart, and indirect indications suggest that many take the pill and/or have a stash of condoms hidden in their room somewhere.
Wow. A space alien version of Mitt Romney. Oh shit, too easy.
Let’s see…the undeclared wish in Whelan’s nasty little piece - aside from his nasty little Piece - is that “too bad Roe wasn’t in effect then so we wouldn’t have to deal with this election-stealing mulatto motherfucker.”
Which would add hypocrisy to his basic nastiness. Cretin. You get so fucking sick of the GOP’s ad hominem attacks. Not to mention the ad feminam ones.
Was that too elitist for you wonkettes ignorami to unnerstan?
ManchuCandidate: Cindy’s mom? That might account for part of her low brain function.
Botswana Meat Commission FC: “The Corner” Mad-Libs:
“I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of _Golgothan Shit Demons_ who _comprise my slavering if not nubile constituency_, but _my reading of the bloody tears of Jesus_ suggests that it’s very high.”
iolanthe: oh, but that’s OK, because they are commie, pinko, pro-choice women, so it is fine if they die.
NoWireHangers: that is waaaay too logical, as is teaching sex ed and making birth control easily available. It is better to preach abstinence so you have a population of sexually-clueless pregnant teenagers with STDs.
From all accounts his moms was very enamored of his Sidney Poitier-type father…it’s likely she wouldn’t have done what drunken co-eds do with wild abandon, or at least what Tony Perkins and Ken Blackwell say they do with wild abandon (with a wistful tone of voice).
Doglessliberal: they’d sound like tadpoles
Rodney Badger: “His conclusion is pure gold. He is trying to get you to do this: Ask yourself if you would like to have been aborted. If you are pro-choice, and answer no to this question, then you are a hypocrite.
Of course, this conflates being pro-choice with being pro-abortion, which is like saying being pro-life is being pro-unwanted pregnancies. I wonder what Ed’s position is on teaching birth control, or giving condoms to teenagers?
How out of touch from reality can you be? Does he even know how an abortion works? It is fucking degrading and humiliating procedure. But I suspect that Ed thinks anything involving a vagina is degrading and humiliating, so this little data point won’t bother him much.”
Your problem here is assuming he has anything to do with science and understanding rather than the intentional use of logical fallacies.
He’s from the Lou Dobbs School of Certitude
So? McCain could’ve been aborted with a wire hanger. What’s the point?
Strappo: oh my god–too funny
I like how the implication of this argument is that we should all be afraid of our parents–they all would have aborted us if they just had the chance! Don’t give anyone else that chance!
Also, it’s basically the same argument that Orrin Hatch used on the floor of the Senate in a debate about a traditional marriage amendment a few years ago: as soon as gay marriage is made legal, it will “replace heterosexual marriage.” It suggests that if we all just had the chance, we’d totally shack up with someone of the same sex. Well, Orrin Hatch would, at least.
Advocatus_Diaboli: Best comment in here. Thanks.
moviechick: Rich girls did not abort with wire hangers! If John McCain’s mother wanted to abort him, she would have taken a really *nice* Mexican vacation in a town with a *clean* clinic, not one of the abortion mills in the border towns.
Dumbasses - I’m adopted, born after Roe v Wade. And guess what? My birthmother (we met when I was in my 20s) and I are equally pro-choice! There’s this whole ‘choice’ thing that was going on there, you see…
iolanthe: I haz a sad now. You killed my snark.
Doglessliberal: i hope you’re not being ironic. because i thought it was pretty good for an ad lib.
iolanthe: Yikes. Off topic, but I would like to pay a compliment to your username, if I may. I would also add that from thy dark exile thou art summoned.
Viva la Cynthia: you know, as long as you’re bringing up this gay marriage thing…i’m gay and i have no intention of getting married (been there, done that till my wife died - seriously)…it’s that whole heteronormative thing, sort of bullshit.
Unless i could get his social security.
I’m still so fucking confused: was the possible abortioning of Obama on Whalen’s wish list, and if so, doesn’t that directly contradict his conclusion. I’m pretty sure I’m just time-streaming here, but had Ed Whalen been the product of choice, he wouldn’t have been the product of choice, and if, so,….Oh, no, here I go again….
Strappo: no, serious compliment!
Doglessliberal: thx. gotta million of em. and that’s when i’m sober.
Quick, everyone, breed like rabbits to save all those potential people from the horrible fate of non-existence!
Seriously, though, it’s rather incoherent to say that I’m better off because I exist, since how could some non-existent version of me have any state that compares favorably or disfavorably to mine? It doesn’t compute.
I can, however, say that I’m better off than some similar person born to parents who didn’t want them, or just born in a world where people are routinely coerced into giving birth to children they don’t want.
superfecta: I’m adopted too - pre Roe v. Wade but in the northeast, where abortions were at least somewhat safe. I’ve never met my birth mother, but it doesn’t fucking matter. The lack tortured logic in Whelan’s screed is enough to make me want to jab myself with a coathanger.
You know, maybe he was stoned when he wrote this. It has the feel of a late-night dorm room, stoned, philosophy major conversation. “Duuuude, what if you were never born, man….”
Advocatus_Diaboli: del “lack” - then it reads like an actual sentence:
The tortured logic in Whelan’s screed is enough to make me want to jab myself with a coathanger.
I haven’t found any statistics on the percentage of right wing hacks who have sex with children, but informal indications are that it is very high.
And boy am I bummed that I missed ‘celebrate abortion!’ day.
Just think of how much the right would have embraced Obama if, instead of having a Kenyan father, his mother had been raped by her own father. Palin, at least, wouldn’t have the hear to run against him.
iolanthe: I can’t see your nickname but think of -
When Britain really ruled the waves
In good Queen Bess’s time
The House of Peers did not pretend
to intellectual eminence or scholarship sublime
etc.
the wingnuts always make that argument: “what if we aborted barry or jesus or mother T or santa clause”.
but — with just a cursory review of the population of US america — i think it’s far more likely we’re aborting those toothless people going on about barry hussein or that CA lady who likes her racially tinged foodstuffs.
or possibly joe the plummer.
vintageways: Hey, he didn’t make up a statistic.
So, ah, his argument has that going for it.
TGY: Damme! Must there always be so many G&S geeks on this site? I may need to consult my book of etiquette. I also understand that every boy and every gal that’s born into this world alive (ooh, look - I made it so relevant!) is either a little liberal, or else a little conservative.
Dear Ed Whalen,
What if you had been a blow job? Eh? That would have stopped you from questioning the choices of a woman who is no longer around who I bet would tell you to shove your head up your ass.
Hearts,
SG
Once he’s elected, Barack should reach out to “famous conservative Ed Whelan”
and the pro-life movement by guest starring in a music video with Nick Cannon.
Good thing my whore girlfriend can get an abortion anytime she can’t keep her legs closed; we don’t need any more politicians running around. Also, every seventh abortion is free, like the subway club card. I’m so glad Roe kicked Wade’s ass. Or vice-versa, I don’t know.
I have it on good authority that Ed Whelan is really only upset at Barry for voting against that Illinois law requiring doctors to provide medical care to nearly aborted fetuses or whatever — Ed still has some large piece of his femur sticking out his ass and it’s giving him the runs.
Late to the party here, but I’d like to hear Bill Bennett’s opinion on this abortion.
Neon Trotsky: Do like Baylor in the 1950s and put a tall fence around the girls dormitories. Girls and boys can hold hands through the bars, but no sucky fucky.
sezme: Yeah, these people just assume that women would opt for the abortion every time. It’s very patronizing. Like women don’t have a thought or care in the world about making a very very difficult CHOICE. It’s not all “I’m popping down to the nail salon, then getting my hair done, think I’ll have time for an abortion?”
Ah, jeez, how predictable - it comes up in the debate - nobody gives a shit - yet, this guy tries to use it as a distraction….good fucking luck with that.
What this reminds me of is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Gang_(novel)
Doglessliberal: Right on. I’m sure a white child of privilage like Cindi Lou Hensley would have given birth to her little black bundle of joy with daddy’s blessing too had the situation arised.
Who the fuck do these people think they are fooling? I’m sure all of the dumbass racist “pro-lifers” showing up at the McFalin rallies can’t wait for their daughters to come home pregnant with little Barrys of their own.
fuck, the link is shitty…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Gang_(novel)
Oh shit, find it yourselves…the novel is by Philip Roth.
Barack Obama: Star Child
Rich Lowry: Starburst Child
I think Ed Whelan is actually joking with us. Fact is, rightwingers know that an abortion couldn’t have killed Barry, because they believe he’s split his soul into 7 and hidden the pieces all over the world.
Note to “The Corner”
If a Doctor were to attempt to abort the Anti-Christ, wouldn’t he just teleport his preggers Mom to a hut in Nigeria, which is what he did anyway hours before his birth???? Barry was never in any danger because he was, in fact a broken-condom demon zygote.