The World O' Crap Archive

Welcome to the Collected World O' Crap, a comprehensive library of posts from the original Salon Blog, and our successor site, world-o-crap.com (2006 to 2010).

Current posts can be found here.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Once Again, Reality Outpaces Satire

From our friends at WorldNetDaily comes news of a group of Coloradans who are trying to “exploit a loophole in the Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court ruling” by getting the state to declare that zygotes are people too. Per WND, the state’s Legislative Council already has approved the wording of the proposal, which aims to amend the state’s constitution to declare in part that:
THE TERMS “PERSON” OR “PERSONS” SHALL INCLUDE ANY HUMAN BEING FROM THE MOMENT OF FERTILIZATION.
The article goes on to say that:
The new definition of person specifically would be applied to sections 3, 6, and 25 of Article II of the state constitution.
Those sections confirm that all “persons” have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, including “the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties,” that courts of justice shall be open to every “person,” and no “person” shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
So, I guess Jesus’ General and his militia of armed Zygote-Americans were just slightly ahead of their time.
Posted by s.z. on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 9:43 pm.

17 Responses to “Once Again, Reality Outpaces Satire”
 
Zygotes? Pah! I’m having each individual sperm declared a legal adult. That way, if I deny women my essence for four to six weeks, I can vote 8 billion times in the 2008 election.
Tell me again why I have to share a country with these people?
Ohhhhh, right. I can’t afford to escape to Bahrain or Dubai or whatever the next despots-in-hiding hot-spot is this week… Maybe I could get sanctuary inside of the parking garage known as Paris Hilton… No actual news ever makes it into THAT structure, for damned sure.
Ya just HAD to remind me of those damned Mason jars, didntcha… {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{shudder}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
Although, come to think of it (no pun there, just move on), they could be the solution to our dependence on petroleum-based plastics/bakelite/Ziploc storage containers… If you leave the lids off of the jars long enough, the consistency will dehydrate enough to produce a very strong, versatile, pliable substance that could, most assuredly, be re-purposed into something productive.
Well, more productive than REproductive.
Just a thought.
Scott, MUST you keep giving them IDEAS?!??!?!
Imagine the voting bloc that they’d find on the floors of porn shops/theatres ALONE!!!
(And only Rick Santorum would volunteer to collect those little potential voters.)
‘Zact same nonsense was shot down by the Republican caucus in pre-legislative meetings in Indiana a couple years ago. My sympathies to the good people of Colorado, but it’s always cheering to run into those rare occasions when our local wingnuts prove slightly saner than someone else’s. (Texas doesn’t count.)
Still, I can’t help but feel touched, somewhat, that a group could imagine it had found a “loophole” over “personhood” in Roe. It’s just so darn cute. And assuming the Legislative Council’s approval is in the appropriate mix of errant crayon technique I’d love to hang a copy on the refrigerator.
Hmmm…..let’s think about this a minute.
Logically speaking, it is impossible to tell with absolute certainty whether or not a fertile, heterosexually active woman is pregnant at any specific moment in time. I mean, if you watch me for two or three weeks, you can determine whether or not I’m pregnant, but you can’t tell for sure RIGHT NOW – I could’ve gotten knocked up last night (hypothetically speaking), and there’s no pregnancy test sensitive enough to test for that. Not to test for pregnancy from the moment of fertilization, that is.
Now, if that seconds-old conceptus is a legal person, it has ALL the rights legally pertaining thereunto a legal person. And those rights go waaaaay beyond just not being “murdered”.
I say we start an all-women crime gang. Then, when we are arrested and put in jail, we simply file a habeas corpus petition for our embryos. After all, our embryos haven’t committed any crimes, and they would be illegally jailed at that point. And what kind of heartless monster puts an innocent baby in jail with hardened criminals?
We will be unarrestable. And therefore, we will be unstoppable. Hell, if anyone tries to arrest us, we’ll have an attorney file assault charges against them – on behalf of our embryos. Just because *I* am committing a crime does not give you the right to assault my poor, helpless baby.
Could we maybe take out life insurance policies on our “babies” and then collect when we get our periods? Because that would sure beat working for a living. Poor dead babies (there really is no simple way to tell the difference between an early miscarriage an a menstrual period).
I think this has great potential. Who wants to join me?
Two exceptions, Jillian (although I’ve always wanted to be a member of a gang — but I am *not* gonna be the Pinky Tuscadero, dammit — OR the Leather Tuscadero, either — that mullet was way before its time, but still a fucking nightmare):
1. They incarcerate “provably” pregnant women every damned day. They give birth in the prison infirmary, and the babies go to live with the grandparents and/or baby-daddy. The tattered remnants of our criminal “justice” system don’t give a flying frog fuck about “innocent bab(ies) in jail”. So, no, I don’t think that we can parlay this over. Nice concept, though.
2. Since when has an insurance company EVER paid off what they PROMISED to pay? You honestly think that they’d let ANYBODY take out a life-insurance policy on a a clot the size of a pinhead that’s going to be flushed down the toilet? What are we supposed to do, save our maxipads and tampons and personal wipes in the freezer until they can be examined with a microscope and the “corpse” is found?
Yeah, I’m a major buzzkill today. Sorry. Good stuff, I’m just thinking of the major clots that I’ve passed (thankfully), and I didn’t get a damned thing for ‘em. Plus, y’know, I can’t ever forget that none of these penile-ly-challenged males who propose such legislation and pretend to give a fuck about “babies” — are really just recidivist piglets who hate women and are still trying to drag us back into the Dark Ages with chastity belts and slave rings. They’re pandering to the great white-bread-eating unwashed, the people who need Bill O’Reilly to tell them how to think, the folks who believe that Pat Robertson gives a fuck about poor people (’cause, of course, they ain’t no po’ folks in Good White Jeebus’ Murka, unless they is just LAZY).
People, for the large part, suck, in other words. It’s the ones who lie about it who are fucking up our planet.
Since, as Jillian points out,there’s no naked-eye way to distinguish between a spontaneous 1st month miscarriage and regular menstruation, maybe we could get the sponsors of this idiocy to mount the necessary fundraising to create a menses-salvation department of Colorado’s state govt… simple, you just determine which Coloradan females are both fertile and engaging in hetero sin, then assign a “Zygote Guardian Angel” to each one, who follows her around, ready to rush into the loo to save the Precious Cell Cluster that might, just possibly, be in danger of being flushed…
Simple. Blastulas forever.
Don’t they have a show somewhat like that, I think that they call it “Intervention”?
So, would this mean that every miscarriage and every period must be investigated for possible foul play? Do samples need to be sent to the forensics lab for evaluation? Does every woman who has tested pregnant need to be registered with the government for protection of the baby? Can every woman’s diet, smoking, and drinking behavior be restricted to prevent possible child abuse? Inquiring minds want to know!
Aw, lighten up, Annti. Most people are OK. It’s just that the other 49.95% ruin things for everybody.
I actually wrote this back in the late 80s. I intended it to be dystopian science fiction, but I ran into too many people who thought this was “a great idea”:
But For the Grace of God
Rugosa, don’t make me crank the fucking woodchipper. My back is killing me and diesel fuel is more expensive than gasoline and I just don’t need the fucking hassle this week.
We shall conclude this discussion with an hymn:
There are Jews in the world.
There are Buddhists.
There are Hindus and Mormons, and then
There are those that follow Mohammed, but
I’ve never been one of them.

I’m a Roman Catholic,
And have been since before I was born,
And the one thing they say about Catholics is:
They’ll take you as soon as you’re warm.
You don’t have to be a six-footer.
You don’t have to have a great brain.
You don’t have to have any clothes on. You’re
A Catholic the moment Dad came,
Because
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.
Every sperm is sacred.
Every sperm is great.
If a sperm is wasted,
God gets quite irate.

If an embryo is a person then wouldn’t pregnancy for an unwanted child be slavery or involuntary servitude and therefore violate the 13th Amendment ? It certainly would be servitude more intrusive than even the Southern “beaus” inflicted.
H-bob, that’s why I was a 10-month baby.
I could hear what was out here, waiting for me, and I *knew* that it wouldn’t be good. I tried to flip over to breech and brace my feet on the pelvic saddle, but no such luck. I’ve always been a good swimmer, but I’m no Esther Williams.
So read the “forced slavery” thing however you want, but the imprisonment in utero was an easy coast compared to post-partum.
And Actor212, like I *need* people sticking Python heads into my head again… thaaaaaaannnnkkkkssss.
Python SONGS, dammit. Shaddup.
Maybe we should count a zygote as 3/5ths of a person for census purposes.
I do have a few questions about how this would work.
Does this change the standard of citizenship from birth to fertilization? In particular, will zygotes of illegal aliens automatically be given US citizenship even if we kick their mothers out of the country before they are born?
The real issue is giving zygotes the vote. Will they vote by absentee ballot?

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