Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for March 17, 2012

Republicans seem to be immune from shame.

Politicians make us pay two-fold; policies and money.

Maybe they think they’ll make her so broke she can’t afford not to have the kid? I wouldn’t put that kind of thinking past them. Insanity knows no boundaries.

@gmartin997You’re a sensitivity trainer, right?

@ basshwy’s final post yesterday on executing murderers:

“Surely it is an infinitely greater penalty to have them live as long as you can possibly make them live – in miserable circumstances in prison.”

Is that how we make them pay for taking someone’s life—-strip them of their right to liberty but not their right to life?

That’s uncannily like what we see Texas doing in this strip.They can’t make her pay for having robbed her fetus of its questionable right to life, so they brand her with the scarlet “A” of an abortress (not a word, but in Texas that’s neither here nor there).

Extremes meet: abortion opponents/death-penalty opponents. What they share in common is their reluctance to define not life but the right to life.

The only serious attempt I’ve seen to bring these extremes together was by Starrman, the ex-cop who said experience had taught him that deserved capital punishment is “retro-abortion.”

Pro-lifers have to get over the notion that abortion murders an innocent life. Those opposed in principle to capital punishment have to explain how we can give justice to the murder victim without taking the murderer’s life.

Pro-lifers are accused of being narrow-minded, and now (according to Clark Kent) sadistic. But the opposite is true. The pro-abortion folks are so intolerant, they can’t even tolerate their own pre-born sons and daughters. Further, they malign the pre-born children, saying they should be killed because they are “unwanted” [a euphemism for being the target of hatred and intolerance] and could have miserable lives and grow up to be criminals. What if this were said about any other group of people—blacks, Filipinos, Poles, Latinos, women, gays: "They are unwanted, so they should be killed because they may lead miserable lives and become criminals. Wouldn’t fly, would it?

Doonesbury’s abortion-business-customer character expressed hatred toward Rick Perry, inferring that abortionists should kill any pre-born child who might grow up to be like Rick Perry.

This week, one of you Doonesbury directed a hateful comment at me saying that “unwanted” babies should be aborted “especially if they turn out like you”.

Dehumanizing is another way to express hatred and intolerance, and to rationalize oppressive behavior. Thus, the pro-aborts try to dehumanize the pre-born children. The Holocaust was rationalized by dehumanizing Jews. Slavery was rationalized by dehumanizing blacks. Have you ever seen a woman give birth to a cat, a dog or a cow? No! The fetus is human. Not canine, not feline, not bovine. Human. The fetus is alive. If the baby’s not alive, then what is being aborted. (Aborted is a synonym for interrupted, terminated or ended, even killed). An abortion terminates, ends, kills, a human life.

Sadistic? Killing an innocent human life isn’t sadistic? (Yes Palin drome, abortion is the killing of an innocent human life. You need to get over your denial.)

rmleon said, 21 minutes ago…

NOTHING of consequence.

IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT AN IGNORANT MAN CAN ASK MORE QUESTIONS THAN ALL THE WISE MEN IN THE WORLD CAN ANSWER. THAT BEING SAID, HARLAN ELLISON, A SCIENCE FICTION WRITER HAS STATED THAT ONE IS ONLY INTITLED TO AN INFORMED OPINION. THAT BEING SAID, AS AN IGNORANT MAN, I ASK YOU. HOW CAN ONE HAVE AN INFORMED OPINION IF EVEN COMIC STRIPS ARE CENSORED?

Indignity is the whole point. It’s not vindictiveness toward women. It’s vindictiveness toward Mommy and Mommy Figures. Mommy says you can’t have the cookie. Mommy Figure Girlfriend or Wife says you can go out drinking with the guys. Daddy has no authority, he says go ask your mother. Your friend says you can’t stay with him because his woman’s kinda funny… The laws are made by petulant vengeful little boys, not real men who have outgrown such selfishness.

Gary has finally been consumed with liberal righteousness. He needs to take a long vacation.

Americans don’t understand that censorship is already rampant: for instance, GT’s readers have never seen him criticize apartheid because he censors himself, knowing which side his bread is buttered on. Instead GT picks targets that, although provoking controversy, don’t offend his paymasters. GT is like George Clooney, who indulges his attention-seeking needs by criticizing Sudan’s government, but who knows he couldn’t survive in show business if he were to criticize apartheid

I, for one, love apartheid. It makes things so much easier for people like me to get a decent cup of coffee.

Saw part of a show called freakenomics I think. The premiss of one part was abortions lower the crime rate by having unwanted children aborted. They used the “facts” that 3 years befor Roe V Wade there were 5 states that allowed easy to get abortions. Their crime rate lowered significantly 3 years before the rest of the country about twenty years after abortions were legalized. Their premise was that the fewer children born that were not wanted the less chance of a child becoming a criminal. I am not saying this is true since I don’t know. Full disclosure – I am against most abortions, but I have no right to tell someone else what to do.

Well, now that Texas has this thing in place, I predict you’ll see people going to nearby states for abortions instead… or turning to the “shadow doctors” who’ll do anything for money, legal or not.Whenever the government puts restrictions on something, people generally find a way around it. This won’t be any different.

I notice the sperm donor hasn’t been inconvenienced by any of this.

You have less waiting period on a handgun in most states. As George Carlin said, “Conservatives want live babies so they can become dead soldiers.” The irony of these 2 facts says a lot.

Trudeau is not the one beating this horse…

“Girl”?

Let’s add a 10" plastic wand to your prostate exam…..

Pursuant to a little known provision of the law, a final plea will be made to her by Frankie the Dancing Fetus.

Ahh, someone’s been reading their Deuteronomy!

Deuteronomy 22:28-29: “If a man is caught in the act of raping a young woman who is not engaged, he must pay fifty pieces of silver to her father. Then he must marry the young woman because he violated her, and he will never be allowed to divorce her.”

What harsh punishment for the poor rapist!

Oops, I forgot about Deuteronomy 22:23-24: “If within the city a man comes upon a maiden who is betrothed, and has relations with her, you shall bring them both out of the gate of the city and there stone them to death: the girl because she did not cry out for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbors wife.”

Ahh, that makes more sense. If you violate another man’s property, you pay the consequences!

Okay, fair is fair. IF it’s now acceptable to put a woman through a physical examination that totally incinerates her constitutional rights, then can we have a random Rediculan Congress member take a colonoscopy without benefit of anesthesia and in full view of the Senate?

I just can’t believe the scorn these rules show for pregnancy and motherhood. Is it really so trivial a job, is it really so lightly undertaken, that you think it’s a positive outcome if someone who doesn’t want to continue a pregnancy and have a child does because she’s forced to? I think most women who have abortions think hard about their circumstances – but if they don’t, if they really are so morally shallow that twenty-four hours of reflection changes their mind after two months of saving and planning and making arrangements, are you really in favor of leaving them in charge of a human being for eighteen years?

With your attitude, you should consider a vasectomy – we don’t need more people like you in this world. When your activities result in your pregnancy, you will then have the right to voice your opinion on this subject.

@RMLeon (if she’s still there)

When my better students express impassioned bigotry like yours, I teach them that all racism is stereotyping: substituting a generic abstraction (a black, an oriental, etc.) for the actual individual.

You apparently cannot express your opinions without stereotyping. “This week, one of you Doonesbury directed a hateful comment at me . . . Dehumanizing is another way to express hatred and intolerance. Thus, the pro-aborts [i.e. everybody whose opinion I dislike] try to dehumanize the pre-born children {i.e. non-viable embryos]. The Holocaust was rationalized by dehumanizing [or stereotyping?] Jews.”

I’ve emphasizeed your stereotypes to show you how your bigotry springs from sloppy thinking. Your education, such as it is, has failed you. But I see promise in your moral integrity. I recommend Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason.

if Kant sounds too bloodless and philosophical, then you can at least ponder the meaning of actual, non-stereotypical “others” in the injunction, “Do unto others as you would have them do to you.”

paying to be raped, what sick, perverted madman thought that one up?

@palin drome easy enough. A fetus has no rights under the Constitution.. None zero, zip, nada..

A woman making a medical decision concerning her pregnancy is no one business. The only who has to know the decision is the doctor. Her reasons hers alone.

A person on death row. Still has right as that person is born.. While there nothing in the Constitution that says one way or another on the subject. Very few Industrialized nations have any form of the death penalty..

Why because even as a deterrent. The death penalty does not work. Considering that even one person that has been proved innocent after being put to death should be enough to make every one question just why we have a death penalty in this country.

Comparing the two is comparing apples to oranges. Two different subjects with different issues.

@rmleon The melodrama, the pathos, the sheer bullshyt..

This strip is still a LOAD. Of course, you won’t see this because they’ll delete it.

She’s brutally forced into 24 hours of thought? OH THE HUMANITY!

On the upside, it’ll probably be a new record for her.

This is the second day in a row I’ve noticed encouragement of ungood crimethought from you, and had to report to Minitrue, Ingsoc. Is this a misprint?

@ rmleon – No one is “pro abortion”. I think we all agree that in a perfect world there would be no such thing as abortion. Making abortion illegal is not a right idea however, as then it will be turned over to the criminal element. The wealthy will still have access to a sterile surgical procedure and the poor will have to make do with the butchers operating out of a basement room in a tenement. What I don’t hear from the so called “pro-life” groups are viable alternatives to terminating a pregnancy. They should do the hard work by providing readily available, high quality alternatives. Provide easy access to contraceptives and provide education rather than legislation. There will be no more abortions when no one desires one. I know from whence I speak as I have, at age 67, a 20 year old son due to a careless evening on the part of my wife and I 20 years ago. Abortion would have been an easy answer but neither of us were comfortable with that. On the other hand I lost an older brother to abortion back in the ’40’s when abortion was illegal. My father happened to be physician however, and had “connections”. He was also something of a male chauvinist so my mother had little say in the matter. And yes, my father was a Republican and my Mother a Democrat (guess who I take after).

I learned something today. “Douche Nozzle”. I seldom hear a comic insult that I haven’t heard before. Wonderful..

This is really such a private matter. It isn’t fair that it should be up for public debate. I don’t invade anyone else’s genitalia, I think they should leave mine alone as well. Anyway, yes, she now has to pay for an unwanted and unneeded medical procedure and she has to come back in 24 hours for the actual abortion. The person with the sperm isn’t doing anything to help with the situation. It is, as usual, all up to the woman involved to deal with the situation.

Indianapolis is a Republican town.

Who would know from the comments that the issue is whether to kill an unborn child?

ok, class. this weeks assigned reading will be “the cider house rules” by john irving. your task will be to label all of the characters either “hero”, “villain”, or “victim”…

Republicans share philosophy with Al-qaeda. Both want women subdued, and both want government that is heavily influenced by religion.

.Abortion is the murder of a living human. birth control prevents that murder. abortion also prevents the birth of an unwanted child-the greatest tragedy of all

I bet you’re right, about most of them, anyway. It also amazes me how they fail to see the similarities between themselves and the Taliban.

The Repubicans-the new Taliban. The Tal-i-ban-Repub-li-can’s are more pro birth than pro life. Once the child is born their concern for children’s welfair ends. I wonder how many anti choice zelots out there have adopted an un wanted child? NONE

I have been reading articles in online papers from all over the country. This story arc has created a firestorm all across the nation. This is good. Debate is good. It gets people off their collective butts and gets their brains in gear. The politicians have run rough-shod over their constituents for far too long. They have imposed THEIR will on us and we’ve sat back and let them do it. If it takes something like Garry Trudeau’s comic strip to shake us out of our stupor and get us thinking again, so be it. We need to wake up and take back the country our young men and women have lost their lives “defending” in foreign lands. Tell the politician ‘You work for US! WE pay your over-inflated salaries and retirement benefits! It’s damned well time YOU start acting like it and take OUR interests into consideration and act on them." Wake up people. Texas is just one state of 50, but how hard will it be for the other states to follow suit if we keep saying “yes mas’er” and let the politicians tell us what we can and cannot do in our PRIVATE lives?

Had an abortion at age 30 (birth control failed). Never been an issue for me as I don’t feel the soul enters until just before birth. It was legal and safe. Contrast that with a friend who had to go to a motel in SD 30 years ago for hers. Women are going to have abortions; they always have, they always will. Our bodies, our choice.

Pro-Lifers can live their lives as they wish— just don’t tell me how to live mine. And if they believe Life is so sacred to all, then why support the death penalty & carrying concealed weapons? Explain guns to the family visiting FL who lost their innocent son to some vigilante.

First, it’s PRO-CHOICE or ANTI-CHOICE. Everyone values LIFE. Choice is guaranteed, under the US Supreme Court. Second, it takes a comic strip to fully expose the nastiness, perversion, and fear the Republicans harbor towards women who have choices!!?? Really!!?? Thank you, Doonesbury!!! God bless Garry Trudeau!!! Listen up, people!

Amen brother! And remember, Anything can happen in Tex-ass!

I would ask only one very important question:If one is against abortion (and I’m willing to cede that it is rather like an amputation of a limb – never to be done unless absolutely necessary), how do these same people feel about inexpensive and easily obtained birth control?Pills & rubbers = fewer abortions.Or is the right-wing only looking to punish those who have sex for reasons other than procreation? Because, Heaven knows, THEY NEVER do that.

And you and the other left wing types foaming at the mouth here represent the Democrats and their incredibly vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with them, doing their best to demonize and silence those whose views do not mesh with theirs. Instead of trying to engage in a calm, rational debate, you immediately start name calling and doing all in your power to whip up a howling mob, totally ignoring and marginalizing any and all facts and evidence that does not support your positions. You people are the ones without any shame, and you not only know it, but you revel in it.

not to change the subject, and maybe you meant it rhetorically, but regarding “what does [apartheid] have to do with american problems currently?”

apartheid in america is alive and well, and represented most dramatically by the u.s prison system, where people of color are represented most disproportionately to the u.s. population at large, and usually for much lesser crimes than the white inmates. the system finds it easier to jail people of color rather than risk fixing the justice system and making it truly colorblind.

now back to a woman’s right to choose, and the real and present threats to that right…

Texas’ next law will require rapists to get tested for STDs, trans-uretharal probe, then serve a 24 hour waiting period, then their rape will be “legal”?

ALL “pre-born” children, as in ovum in the ovaries, MUST BE NAMED! They are LIVING HUMAN CELLS with potential!

Every woman engaging in sex MUST bring EVERY ovum to “completion”, and educate it! (Okay, home school will be a reasonable alternative to education.)

Yes, this is horribly unfair to the man who paid good money for her. Though I suppose one should err on the side of caution, as even the Grand Ole Perverts allow that not EVERY woman is a vile, sex-crazed slut.

So long as women are viewed merely as vessels, it is only fair that men should be viewed as sperm.

It’s not everyday that gladlythecrossdressingbear has one of the more civil posts.

How about some guidelines and restrictions around vasectomy? Maybe a total ban since the ONLY reason is to prevent birth! Counseling mandatory and not paid by insurance! Maybe a penal probing to let men see where there potential babies come from.

Hey, take a hint. The public is tiring of your take on republican party as am I. You may salvage what is left of your credibility if you would , from time to time, speak of scandals such as Fast and Furious to name one. as it stands now you are a bore, singing the same old tune.

Hope “rmleon” doesn’t have a gun in his closet – an angry MAN – I’m also a man, but don’t think I have the right to tell women how to manage their own bodies – get some counseling, mjleon -

You may be tired. If so, you really don’t have to read the strip! Many of us are not the least bit tired, not so long as the idiot right wing continues the war on women.

“no, the real problem goes back to the empowerment of women”

oops — should have said “goes back to the lack of empowerment of women.”

Some have suggested that the Republicans have turned this election year’s focus to abortion/anti-abortion to distract from the very real problems besetting the country. Get everyone yelling at each other rather than demanding change of the powers that be, and we won’t notice as the country — or more specifically — the people — continues down the tube.

And, of course, we’re all yelling at each other: the republicans and the democrats at each other, the women and the men, the liberals and the conservatives, the born here and the immigrants; while missing the obvious. It doesn’t matter who is in the WH. Big money puts that person there, and that person is always beholden to big money in the end. The problem is at the top — the military-industrial complex — and we’re down here fighting each other, despite the fact we’re being done to from above…

I’d like to make a satirical comment, but I’m afraid that someone might think that I seriously believe what is written here. This Is Satire!! Fiction! I Don’t Believe This!!This is a fictional Conservative, Evangelistic, So-Extreme-Right-Wing-That-He’s-Coming-Back-From-The-Other-Direction Idiot. Okay? Ahem…Ain’t you fools never heard of ‘Original Sin’? Even the Bl**dy Papists believe in Original Sin!! That little clump of cells is an Innocent Human life NOW. And better to die an Innocent and go straight to the arms of J*s*s, because the instant that it’s born, BAM! it’s a SINNER!! Doomed to burn in H*LL like the rest of the sinners that don’t send all of their money to… (address removed)…Repeat: Satire! Fiction! Humor, perhaps.

While it seems disappointing that the GOP would bring up issues that many thought were over way back in the 70’s, I don’t think we should allow them to distract us. I know that Obama was not able to do everything that many had hoped for, but I still view him as a far better alternative than anyone on the other side! Even if you disagree, I am sure that you can see that we can’t let them have their way just because they are bringing up something that should have been settled long ago…

This whole discussion would be pointless, if the woman & her mate had been responsible enough to use some kind of birth control to begin with.

Sometimes bc does fail, even if you were responsible enough to use it.

Also, sometimes people can’t obtain bc, even if they wish to use it. Ironically, many who oppose abortion most ferociously, tend to also oppose bc.

Military industrial complex?? You young lady , have just tipped your hand. Marxism anyone?

The person who first brought up the concept of the military industrial complex was Dwight D. Eisenhower. If you trying to call Ike a Marxist, as a proud Kansan, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step outside…

OK, maybe he wasn’t the very first person to warn us about it, but he certainly did warn us about it in his farewell address to the nation. Anyway, so you think Ike was a Marxist? Really?

@ gmartin997 — Wonder where the “sensitive” father is. Perhaps out getting another “insensitive” girl/woman pregnant. Maybe he should also have his tubes tied.

Thank you Trudeau for standing up for women’s rights. I finally understand the humor in your comic strip. The humor is that it ISN’T FUNNY; it’s satire. I laughed, but only because this topic is so important to me.

Conserveratives love to fight any mention of abortion. However, they do nothing to make it less likely. They fight contraception, which would make abortion far less necessary. They fight against homosexual marriage, even though such a marriage would not result in abortions. They want to change the tax code so it taxes the poor and middle class more that the rich, making it harder for people to afford to afford to have a child. People who are pro-choice are not for abortions. They see it as a necessity based on real-life situations. People don’t think, oh, I’m going to have as much sex as I can and have as many abortions as possible. That person is a myth created by conservatives.The fact is, conserverative policy is often selfish, as well as unrealistic. It is not about caring about people or even about the baby. It is policy based on believing an interpretation of a book that is often based on hatred and narrow minded views. For all the talk, none of them truly care about WWJD. Look at a Rush Limbaugh or a Newt Gingrich and ask if Jesus would really have approved of them and their narrow minded, hate filled, hypocritical views.People who are pro-choice don’t see it as a death of a child, but the death of a potential child. It is a question of when life truly begins. Is it the second the sperm hits the egg? Is it when the child has a brain or a heart and can feel pain. Is it when the child is fully born? For all the talk, no one knows when is a child is alive or has a soul. Just something to think about.

Your Christian (or christlib) objection to retribution will be commended by those who think we live in a beloved republic, but it looks pretty silly as a deterrent to evil.

Capital punishment is the only 100% effective deterrent against a murderer’s repeating his crime.

You may not realize that when you give a murderer “another chance” without making him pay for his crime, you are buying into the Christian (Augustinian) teaching that we’re all sinners and live in a world without justice.

Either that, or you just don’t give a damn about the victim and you figure that as far as life is concerned, “Out of sight is out of mind.”

Regardless of where one stands on the issues surrounding reproductive rights, this particular week of bold, galvanizing strips deserves a Pulitzer prize, or whatever they give to cartoonists.

I have an idea – grow a uterus. Then you can comment intelligently on this point. Or, you men can pontificate all day but you just sound foolish and as a result, not many folks take you seriously.

Like the guv’nor of South Carolina, who is so incredibly stupid, that she knows NO shame!!!!

HOw would YOU know anything about the character’s reason for being there?

Rethuglicans always claim to KNOW others’ motivations.

The Jacksonville, IL. paper didn’t run this story line either,which is ironic because they promote themselves as being the voice of the Lincoln-Douglas area. Two politicians who were famous debaters. The story line they ran was funny, true, and also a commentary on our times, and ANY newspaper editor has the right to decide what does or does not go into the paper. That’s in the 1st Amendment too. GT has the right to deal with any subject he wants, but that doesn’t guarantee that his papers have to run it. I am shocked & sadde ed at the amount of hatred & intolerance heard from both sides of this argument. I’m sure lots of Republicans have had abortions, & lots of Democrats oppose it. But Lincoln & Douglas remained friends even though they never agreed on slavery. Why do we villify those with whom we have disagreements? I’m reminded of a Rodney King quote here.

Sharuniboy, that’s just brilliant. But that’s also the problem, as you seem to be aware. I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: approximately half of all Americans are of below average intelligence, and a good many more are not much smarter than that (and, doG help us, they vote!). They can’t, or resolutely won’t, understand your point. More’s the pity.

Kinda dislike the Bible being called " Hebrew mythology book". You may not believe it, but that doesn’t make it so.As for Psalm 51,( in Hebrew, v7, not 5) David says HE was born of his mother’s iniquity, a charge that was leveled at him prior to becoming king. It has no meaning for every one else who was ever conceived..On a lighter note, I finally bought the Atlanta Fish Wrapper on Friday and saw that they were running the current strip (in the Entertainment section). I’m proud of a paper that has been bending over backward to not be called liberal, in vain, of course.

If only half of what has appeared in these strips is true, I find it unbelievable that “The State” should treat any of its citizens in this way. The US is the home of the brave, all right – that girl showed incredible bravery.

@Ashburn Stadium“I also feel that I should have been aborted and not brought into this life under the conditions with which I was raised.”

That remark shakes the pro-life credo at its very roots.

I’d love to hear their response, if they have any.

The sad thing is that this debate is still raging in a country that calls itself the “leader of the free world.” The LAW has been established that abortion (whether you like it or not, and regardless of why you like it or not) is LEGAL in America. This woman (and all others in her situation) are being harrassed over a procedure which is absolutely LEGAL. She is doing nothing WRONG and she is being treated like a criminal by folks who simply don’t BELIEVE in the law. I don’t care what you believe in — the law is the law — please start obeying it (as we supposedly teach our children to do).

I am in the mood to make a comment before beddybye and wonder how long I need to wait to chime in after our LWP. What time more or less will the Sunday selection come up?

And is there a way to get it to pop up when released if there is no regular time?

“Pro-choice” is just a euphemism for pro-abortion. You “pro-choicer” folks only care about one choice: Death for pre-born children.

Choice means a selection among (usually good options). For example: What color should I wear today? What flavor ice cream do I want to eat? When none of the choices seem good, it is a DILEMMA.

When someone is faced with an unwelcome pregnancy, she has a DILEMMA: Should I kill my baby or let her live? If I let her live, should I raise her or place her for adoption? “Dilemma” is a better word to describe the decision than “choice”.

“No one is denying that the fetus will be human. "

Not WILL BE human. The fetus IS human.

“An embryo is not ALIVE, it can only survive in the womb. "

You just contradicted yourself. First you say the embryo is not alive. Then you say it say cannot survive (will die) outside the womb. If it’s not alive, then how can it die? The fact that somebody needs something to survive (food, water, air) is not a good reason to deprive him of that necessity. So you cannot justify removing a baby from the womb by saying that it needs to stay in the womb to survive.

You ask: Why should a woman endure a pregnancy instead of kill her pre-born child? That’s like asking: Why should a man endure a nasty divorce and child custody battle and pay alimony, instead of just killing his wife?

To those who are saying babies are not innocent. They are not spiritually innocent. But they are LEGALLY innocent; they haven’t committed any crimes.

As I said, they deleted my comment. that’s how they do it. Shut up conservatives or ANYBODY who disagrees with them.

I’m a conservative, however not on social issues. This law is asinine attempt to go around Roe vs Wade. The law makers should have to prove via women observing that they really need their viagra prescriptions.