Reproduced here for fair use and discussion purposes. My comments in bold.
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Ms. Stahl makes the most egregiously fascist (I don't mean political fascism) statements I have ever read from a Leftist. Amazingly, she comes out and directly says what every Leftist secretly believes but will violently deny when confronted.
If you can contain your astonishment, read the entirety of her letter below.
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Women and girls are persons. “Persons cannot rightly be forced to make their bodies available as incubators to unwanted nonpersons for nine months, especially considering the physical dangers, emotional trauma, and drastic life-changes pregnancy entails” teaches bioethics professor Andrew Johnson of Missouri State U. (The first step towards fascism is to deny personhood, that is, to establish distinctions between the value of certain kinds of human life. Personhood is a legal status, not an ethical one.
Here we have a "bioethics professor" inventing a hierarchy of values favoring the mother over her unborn child, a framework which raises the mother's interests and diminish the child's.
Implicit in this denial of personhood is that one party is enabled to make decisions detrimental to the other without consideration of that party's interests. Interestingly, the "bioethics professor" essentially argues against pregnancy itself as dangerous and detrimental, rather than in favor of abortion.)
Zygotes, embryos and fetuses are not persons. (As soon as one can define away someone's personhood, they become property which can be disposed of at will, which is what happened to black slaves and the Jews in Germany.)
Montana’s only congressman Daines pushes an immoral, unethical lie by introducing “personhood legislation” that equates zygotes, embryos and fetuses with women. (Notice the use of terms like "immoral" and "unethical." Ms. Stahl is happy to pass judgment on Daines by imposing her morality on him. On what basis should her morality prevail is left unexplained.)
Not all humans are persons. (A tacit admission that fetuses are human.) Braindead people sustained by life support are a tragic example. (Which means that anyone not conforming to Ms. Stahl's definition of personhood can be killed without reservation or moral problem. The emotional well being of others takes priority.
The interests of the State most certainly can weigh in on its interests as well. "Non persons" are expensive and do not generate revenue.)
Intelligence, autonomy, self-awareness, emotion, future-regarding intentions and moral responsibility are characteristics of persons. These characteristics are not present in human zygotes, embryos or fetuses. (We can on this basis speculate regarding who else might be deemed non-persons. Those affected with Downs Syndrome or autism. An infant or child up to the age of perhaps 3 years. Any individual with an I.Q. of less than, say, 80. A person deemed stupid because of political persuasion or religious belief. The elderly if they require substantial assistance because they lack "autonomy."
Ms. Stahl would have to explain to use why her rules for personhood would be excepted in any of these cases, and also, who gets to decide their personhood.)
Women’s reproductive health has been a subject fascinating to authoritarian men since the beginning of time. The bizarre theories men propose are contrary to women’s experience and intelligence. Daines’s insulting “personhood legislation” is as much a waste as was his vote to spend billions of taxpayer dollars to shut down our government. (The legislation says this: "The terms 'human person' and 'human being' include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, including the moment of fertilization, cloning, or other moment at which an individual member of the human species comes into being." There is nothing particularly noteworthy here, certainly nothing insulting to women. It simply changes the definition of personhood to conform with medical knowledge about when life begins. It rejects the notion that human beings must be capable of a a particular level of cognitive or physical ability in order to be considered persons.)
It’s time authoritarian men give up attempting to dictate women’s reproductive choices. If men got pregnant, birth control would be marketed as relentlessly as Viagra.
Carol Stahl
Bozeman
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