red fuzzy jesus

Eating Their Own

Some interesting things have happened since the midterm elections.  The reevaluation of Iraq and drama over House committee positions was expected.  The latest round of weirdness from the religious right was not.  Regardless of how the election turned out this predictable lot was expected to remain as single minded and persistent as ever.  Their two main strengths are lockstep loyalty to a short list of priorities and each other.  I don’t think anyone expected them to turn on themselves.

When your team wins you can claim credit – deserved or not – and no one questions your judgment because you achieved the desired outcome.  The fundies played a significant role in getting W a second term no matter how debatable their impact really was.  Between 04 and 06 they went on a wild spending spree of political capital making increasingly shrill demands of the White House.  When the doomed Federal Marriage Amendment came up for a purely ceremonial vote, they demanded Bush trot out to the Rose Garden and make a strained, canned speech and give them lots of photo ops to show how big and strong they were.  This led pundits and commentators to unanimously point out how powerful and ridiculous this segment of the party can be. 

Now when they pulled out all the stops for the 06 elections, and lost anyway, their influence and place of leadership in the Republican Party is questionable.  And those doing the most questioning are members themselves. 

The religious right is the perpetuator of the ‘culture war’ myth.  Their whole shtick is a belief that American culture is locked in a two sided battle between good and evil.  Really, the only thing resembling a culture war is the disagreement between those that think the world can be simplified to good and evil and those that think more complexly.  Gloria Steinem on Bill Maher’s Real Time said it best a few weeks ago.  Paraphrasing, “There are two types of people in this world.  Those that divide the world into two types of people and those that don’t.”

Under the religious right’s banner of certitude lies no mystery.  God’s will is perfectly known.  All truth is simple and diametric.  Cognition is moral confusion.  There is a clearly defined ‘us’ and a clearly defined ‘them.’  And the two shall never fraternize. 

Behold the firestorm over Pastor Rick Warren’s decision to invite Barack Obama to his AIDS symposium.  Obama, a rising star in the Democratic Party, is a person of faith who speaks of Christianity with a believable authenticity.  He’s also pro-choice.  That latter point has made many in the religious right livid and they’ve formed “coalitions” to lobby Warren to reconsider his decision. 

The most fundamentalist of the fundamentalists cannot allow a member of “not them” to speak in their presence or enter a house of worship.   Any deviation from their two-point political mantra is blasphemy and mutiny in the imaginary culture wars.  These two points are, all abortion is bad and all gays are evil.   

Consider some of the things that have been said by enraged members of God’s army:

“As those who have worked to defend preborn children from the horrors of abortion in America and who have stood uncompromisingly against the legalized slaughter of an estimated 50 million Americans in the womb since 1973, we join with one voice in expressing our indignation and opposition to Rick Warren’s welcoming of Senator Barack Obama to his church.”

“We oppose Rick Warren’s decision to ignore Senator Obama’s clear pro-death stance and invite him to Saddleback Church anyway.”  Source: Americans for Truth

“Pro-death?”  That’s how crazy and out of the mainstream these people are.  If you don’t embrace their specific policies you’re in favor of death.  What reasonable group that expects to be taken seriously uses favoring death as a credible criticism against an opponent?   

Despite all the invective, some believers are waking up to the reality that political opportunists might not be the best representation of their faith.  And some savvy, popular pastors are acting on that suspicion.  Rick Warren is a pop culture kind of Christian leader.  He’s hip (relatively speaking), welcoming, and political without being off-puttingly hostile.  He also has a broader idea of Christians’ call in society. 

Christianity is more than pro-life and anti-gay.  Jesus certainly taught about more things than abortion and homosexuality.  In fact, he never mentioned either.  He did, however, say, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was sick and you visited me." "Whatever you neglected to do unto one of the least of these, you neglected to do unto Me!"

For the political leaders of the religious right, the teachings of Jesus are secondary to a narrow political agenda.  However, for regular people who sincerely believe in the Bible and go to church Jesus is still a top priority.  This creates a rift between faithful followers and the politicians that manipulate them.  The ‘civil war’ going on among many Christian Conservatives centers around which term should guide action, the ‘Christian’ or the ‘Conservative.’ 

Another sign of this civil culture war, the new President of the Christian Coalition was thrown out on his keister this weekend because he thought Christians should focus on more than two things.  In a statement released to the press, Rev. Hunter said, “I wanted to expand the issues from only moral ones -- such as opposing abortion and redefining marriage -- to include compassion issues such as poverty, justice, and creation care," Hunter said in a statement. "We need to care as much for the vulnerable outside the womb as inside the womb."  But even though treating people justly and worrying about the poor and sick comes directly from Jesus’ teachings it cannot be accommodated by the religious right.  Jesus explicitly said help the poor and sick.  The leaders of Christianity get really angry if you ask them to. 

By focusing on only two mean spirited issues the religious right is hastening its irrelevance.  Responding to a Democratic majority with fierce demands of excluding all Democrats from debate virtually assures the religious right will be the ones excluded.  Refusing to tackle issues central to the faith alienates the politically leaders from their bedrock of support.  And refusing to reach across the aisle on an issue such as AIDS, in which there is great agreement and reduced partisanship, is suicide.  I don’t have to make the argument that the religious right is concerned only with partisan political gain rather than the tenants of their faith.  When they refuse to talk to someone about helping people with a disease because of his party they make the criticism for me.  But when they attack a popular guy for wanting to speak at a church they stop being politically savvy, too. 

It has long been my wish that people with sincere religious beliefs would stop being duped and led by those with impure intentions.  Most followers of the religious right, like members of my family, are sweet, caring people who take their religion very seriously.  But the leaders of the religious right are craven political aficionados deft at public manipulation and skilled with the tool of fear.  They don’t care about people.  They care about power. 

Pastors like Warren, while hardly progressive champions, may be the reason Christians reassess their allegiance to Dr. Dobson and company.  If they continue to go to the same source for spiritual edification and are fed bitter partisan politics every time, like the lab mouse not getting its cheese, eventually they’ll stop pushing that button.  Helping the sick and poor can be spiritually rewarding.  Bashing gays, not so much. 

Jesus said help the sick and poor.  A popular evangelical leader wants to hold a symposium on AIDS and the leader of the Christian Coalition wants to talk about poverty.  They are both pilloried by their colleagues and treated the same as the pastor caught frequenting a gay male escort drug dealer.  These people are sick in the head and ethically poor.  Real Christians should minister to them. 

The political tactics of the religious right are notoriously nasty.  Dick Armey recently lamented the bullies stomping around the hill describing them as plain “mean.”  That’s something from a stalwart of the venomous Gingrich days.  It will be interesting to see if they are equally as caustic when fighting each other.  Already I have seen Pastor Warren described as an “evangelical” (in quotes) leader in their right wing articles suggesting his deviation brands him as one of “them”.   Unlike my displeasure with the situation in Iraq, the devolution of this “culture war” into a civil war is welcomed and long overdue.

Grey Areas and Grey Matter

I sometimes feel sorry for President Bush.  Everything he’s tried to do at home and abroad ends up a big sloppy mess.  His friends don’t like him anymore.  And he’s not sure what to do to get a little support from someone… anyone. 

A good example of this is his contradictory floundering when it comes to the so called “culture of life.”  It used to be so easy.  All he had to do was come out every few months and make some hateful remark about gay people or reference an old hymn and the religious wingnuts loved him unconditionally.  And Congress cowered in their shadow.  But now he’s angered both groups and nothing he tries gains him any friends.   

A couple weeks ago Bush used the first ever veto of his presidency to block stem cell research.  The bill would allow for leftovers at fertility clinics that would otherwise be disposed of to be used for research.  Stem cells hold a lot of promise to cure many terminal illnesses.  But Bush pandered to his old buddies in the religious right and vetoed the bill.  Supposedly organisms in lab dishes that consist of only a few pairs of cells that will never, ever be implanted in a woman count as a person.  And medical research cannot be allowed to advance because in the “culture of life” we allow unused cells to go in the garbage while actual, living, breathing people die slow, painful, youthful deaths. 
That’s how Jesus wanted it. 

Of course, Bush has rolled the dice many times catering to a fringe ideology at the expense of the rest of his party and pragmatic problem solving.  Bush would rather ignore bipartisan support in Congress and the urgings of the entire medical and scientific community in order to meet the demands of a few “religious” leaders who have talk shows on the radio.  After all, who better to set scientific policy in the country than the 700 Club?  Relying on the opinions of medical professionals is liberal and elitist and doesn’t “protect life.”

But Rove and Co. miscalculated this veto and it hurt Bush, badly.  Now more than ever congressional Republicans up for reelection are running from the scary religious man.  Poor Republican Senator Arlen Specter, himself a cancer patient, looked visibly distraught on CNN when commenting on Bush’s veto.  Why in the world would Bush seek to protect the otherwise useless contents of a Petri dish while cancer eats through the Senator’s face?  The answer to that comes directly from Rev. Thomas Euteneuer president of Human Life International and one of the principal fundamentalist puppeteers pulling the strings behind this veto:

“Catholics believe, as do many other Christians…, that human life begins at the moment of fertilization, which is the moment when the sperm and the egg meet and they form a new human person with distinct DNA [that is] biologically different from mother and father,"   

You see, all we are as people are strings of DNA.  And there is no difference between you and me and a one-celled organism as long as the DNA in that cell is human DNA.  A soul or innate personality figures not in our intrinsic worth.  We are no more than cells with distinct DNA whether in a test-tube or in a womb. 
This type of thinking belittles the value of human life.  It fails to capture the complex miracle and mystery that makes people, people.  It’s a nutty ideology that equates people to fertilized eggs.  It also makes for really bad politics.  Preventing research on cells that are going to be destroyed anyway may please some people who take their religious mythologies beyond any limit of reason but it doesn’t garner support from the center of the country or the mainstream of the Republican Party. 

So someone in the Bush White House realizes they made a mistake.  Enter Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, the Bush nominee to head the FDA.  He supports having emergency contraceptive available over the counter and Bush fully backs him.  In the White House a fertilized egg is a person when it is in a medical waste bin but it is not a person when the condom breaks or someone forgets to use birth control.  The President does have some raunchy drunk daughters and he may be thinking of them when he supports the guy that favors OTC morning after pills. 

Bush is trying to appease members of his own party with this nominee who is a little more liked by the medical and scientific community.  Bush is trying to make up for his stoppage of medical research.  But it’s like throwing acid in the face of his old religious right buddies. That Rev. Thomas Euteneuer – the one who believes human beings are nothing more than unique strands of DNA – now says Bush “filed for divorce from his [religious] base.”  Oops.  Dubya’s damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t.   

So Eschenbach’s nomination is held up.  Most in the Senate, Republican and Democrat, think he’s a smart, capable, albeit conservative candidate for the job.  Most think he’s qualified and that it makes sense to have emergency contraception available because, well, in the event of an emergency scheduling a doctor’s appointment and waiting to have a prescription filled is a bit impractical.  But the religious right, who still want to dictate all aspects of government, think he is another example of Satan’s agenda to destroy DNA …or something like that.  They can’t stand the thought of an actual doctor who went to medical school setting FDA policy.  They much prefer the pretend type of doctor such as “Dr.” James Dobson and “Dr.” James Kennedy.  And they’ve gone into full conniption mode doing everything they can to get his nomination rescinded – just as Jesus taught. 

Absent from media coverage of these two events is that middle ground in America that doesn’t fit conveniently into over-simplified ‘Red/Blue state’ explanations.  Remember, we’re supposedly deadlocked in a never ending culture war.  That’s what we’re told.  The politicians often fail to recognize that there are people out there that go to church and believe in God but also want a cure for grandma’s Alzheimer’s.  There are many who are quite faithful but don’t see why we can’t research cells.  Instead, the debate is framed in absolutes… secularists vs. “people of faith,” people are fully people when the sperm meets the egg, and you have to please the “religious” leaders or you are siding with liberals and terrorists.  For too long Bush has thought in these absolutist black and white terms and that’s why he’s incapable of brokering consensus enough to get a miner bureaucratic nominee confirmed. 

I sometimes feel sorry for President Bush.  He doesn’t know who his friends are anymore.  You think you can rely on your old crazy religious pals and they turn their endless energy and hysteria against you at the first sign of disobedience.  You think you can count on your comrades in Congress but they have to get reelected and the anti-cure-for-Parkinson’s-disease position just isn’t marketable back home.  The duck gets lamer every day and a legacy remains elusive.  But fortunately, at in vitro fertilization clinics around the country zygotes are tossed into the trash with dignity as we protect the culture of life. 
Halleluiah, praise the lord.       

MORAL PLURALISM AND REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

If you've wondered why I haven't posted short-form articles as frequently lately, it's because I've been working on a huge piece about moral pluralism for school.  Final drafts were submitted to the department on March 10, just before I left for Iceland.  Below is the title, abstract, and table of contents for that work.  The full text will be posted in the Blue Room in PDF format once final edits are completed.
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Moral Pluralism and Reproductive Rights:
Examinations of Liberal Strategies and Honorable Terms of Surrender in the Abortion Wars

Abstract

Pluralism is an inherent component of any society and poses specific challenges to liberal democracy.  The most problematic form of pluralism is moral pluralism or competition among varying views of the human good for representation in government.  In extreme cases moral pluralism can result in the loss of social order.  Attitudes and arguments regarding abortion rights represent the most irreconcilable instance of moral pluralism in contemporary politics.  To bridge the absolutisms of the abortion wars requires a rethinking of formal institutions in liberal democracy.  Moral Pluralism and Reproductive Rights examines the strategies of Political Liberalism, Perfectionist Liberalism, and Discourse Theory and assesses their practical abilities to rectify governable consensus.   

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to the Concept of Pluralism

Chapter 2: Liberal Democracy and the Challenge of Pluralism

Chapter 3: Pluralism in Classic Social Contract Theory
3.1 Hobbesian Conformity Under Comprehensive Authority
3.2 Machiavelli’s Opposite but Equally Valid Viewpoints
3.3 Locke’s Individual Autonomy

Chapter 4: The Unique Challenge of Moral Pluralism
4.1 Moral Pluralism and Social Unrest
4.2 The Inadequacy of Non-Transformative Theories
4.3 Resolution through Discourse
4.4 Irresolution through Discourse

Chapter 5: The Irreconcilable Moral Pluralism of Abortion
5.1 Supreme Court Nominees and the “Unholy Alliance”
5.2 The Two Extreme Camps in Abortion/Anti-Abortion Activism
5.3 New Challenges to Roe v. Wade
5.4 Evolution of “Christian” Activism on the Issue of Abortion
5.4.1 The Current Absolutist Position of “Christian” Activists
5.4.2 Current Assertions of Personhood From the Moment of Conception
5.4.3 Catholic History on the Prohibition of Abortion
5.4.4 Protestant History on the Prohibition of Abortion
5.5 Unquestionable Power of “Christian” Political Activists
5.6 Counter Absolutism on Reproductive Rights

Chapter 6: Transformative Solutions to Moral Pluralism
and the Issue of Abortion

Chapter 7: Seeking Satyagraha

Chapter 8: Limits on the Enforcement of Particular Interests
8.1 Political Liberalism and the Paramount of Individualism
8.2 Defining Political Liberalism and Moral Relativism
8.2.1 Political Liberalism as an Incomprehensive System
8.2.2 Self Respect and Respect for Others
8.2.3 Distinguishing Political Liberalism from Moral
Relativism
8.3 Societal Spheres
8.3.1 Varying Significance Within Spheres Resulting
in Divergent Value Systems and Worldviews
8.3.2 Particular Significance and Shared Values
8.4 Restrictions on Particular Significance in Law
8.4.1 Respecting Personal Choices
8.4.2 Protecting Individualism vs. Total Neutrality
8.4.3 Satyagraha through Restricting Particular
Significance
8.4.3.1 Applying the Restriction of Irrational
Premises to Abortion Case Law
8.4.4 Particular Significance and the Definition of
Personhood
8.4.5 Rational Determinates of Personhood
8.5 Restricted Premises with Unconstrained Discourse
8.6 Form or Practice of Liberalism
8.7 Criticism of Elliminating Irrational Premises
8.7.1 Over Limited Government
8.7.2 Practical Limits to Restricting Irrational Premises
8.7.3 Limited Government and Enabling Individual
Autonomy

Chapter 9: Personal Autonomy through Government Endorsed Morality
9.1 Legal Positivism, Morality and Law
9.1.1 Distinguishing Legal Positivism from Moral
Relativism
9.1.2 Legal Positivism and Moral Assertion
9.2 Perfectionist Liberalism
9.2.1 Perfectionist Liberalism and Informed Choices
9.2.2 Perfectionist Liberalism and Civil Institutions
9.2.3 Perfectionist Liberalism and the Harm Principle
9.2.4 Perfectionist Liberalism and Abortion Rights
9.3 Satyagraha through Shared Political Victories

Chapter 10: Shared Interests vs. Extremist Activism
10.1 Strategic Discourse Theory
10.2 Deconstructing Rhetoric
10.2.1 Derivative Rights and the False Notion of
Personhood
10.2.2 Personhood Defined by the Presence of Interests
10.2.3 Life Absent the Qualifications of Personhood
10.3 Intrinsic Human Value
10.3.1 Intrinsic Value vs. False Personhood
10.4 Detached View of Rights
10.4.1 Detached Respect for Human Life
10.5 Shared Interests
10.5.1 Defining Value
10.5.1.1 True Human Value
10.5.2 Assignment of Human Value
10.6 Contradictions in Personhood Assertions
10.6.1 In-Vitro Fertilization and the
Personhood at Conception Myth
10.6.2 Women as Biological Vessels
10.6.3 Disposable Biological Vessels
10.6.4 Pro-Choice Activism and Women’s Wellbeing
10.7 Consensus Arguments
10.7.1 Satyagraha through Strategic Discourse

Chapter 11: Constructing Satyagraha

Chapter 12: Conclusions

MIER'D IN MYSTERY

It’s a little over a week since President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and the meltdown that ensued has been interesting to watch.  The Republican Party is split right down the middle with economic and religious right wingers grilling and chasing Bush spokespeople and beltway heavyweights reduced to sandbox name calling.  You might think this amuses me.  Well, you'd be half right because the underlying cause for the infighting is more frightening than funny.  The civil war among the reactionaries stems from Miers status as a complete and total mystery. 

Because Miers has no judicial opinions, authored no articles, and has absolutely no paper trail indicating clearly how she feels about anything we are left to pick at scraps to get some idea of the woman who will replace the biggest swing vote on the Court.  And the scraps have been ridiculous.  I hear she attends a church where the pastor feels a certain way about abortion.  She answered a questionnaire from a gay rights group in a contradictory fashion back in the 80s.  There's a rumor  she gave to Hilary Clinton.  She was head of the Bar Association in Texas that now opposes a Federal Marriage Amendment – does she now?  My worst example comes from nursing at the teat of paranoia, also known as talk radio, when I heard a professional conservative yammerer fret “She has a close friend who is in his mid 50s and never married!” In hushed tones we must face the plausible possibility that Harriet has a gay friend.  And what does this tell us about potential Justice Miers?  Nothing!

Luckily there’s a process that keeps us from appointing people to direct the course of the country for decades without knowing anything about them.  She has to go before the Senate Judiciary committee and she has to answer questions that give us an idea of who she is.  Take a moment to get your giggles out of course because no one answers any questions at these things.  People talk about tough confirmation fights but they don’t ask tough questions.  And when the nominee offers up a non-answer, he or she gets a vote anyway. 

At the risk of sounding hypocritical I will concede that I thought it was a good thing Roberts didn’t answer questions.  But that was because there were comparatively a lot of documents with which to evaluate Roberts and he had a stellar résumé of qualifications.  My praise of the silent treatment was based in strategy, not philosophy.  The best way for Roberts to win confirmation was to keep from saying anything that would upset his loudest supporters, the religious right, while proceeding through with a record of complex and pragmatic thinking that pretty much assures he will never be exactly what they want.  Miers is different.  We really don’t know anything about her. 

Today, someone whom I’ve previously labeled a litigious fascist, Jan LaRue, released a memo with a list of questions for Miers.  In some sort of unholy alliance that I am sure threatens the axis of our orbit I agree with Ms. LaRue on something.  It is unfathomable to me why we have to grovel for tea leafs to read when the Constitution requires confirmation.  I can’t understand why the Senators on that committee can’t make Miers answer their questions.  She has to get a majority so Republicans and Democrats alike should agree on some base level of fact finding before they’ll allow her to advance to the floor.

I know it is imprudent for a potential sitting justice to answer specifics on legal questions that may come before her.  We can’t ask a nominee to say how she’ll rule on something before a case has even been briefed and argued.  But we can ask something like, “Do you think Roe v. Wade was rightly decided at the time?”  That’s a perfectly legitimate question and, considering the amount of power this person will have for life, a necessary one.  The idea that the best strategy to fill the court is one of stealth nominees that are rubberstamped is absurd to me.  It would be like holding an election for the secret candidate for president or reelecting your representative in Congress based on indications his friend from college might be light in the loafers. 

My greatest fear right now is that when it comes time for the confirmation hearings we’ll discover that all the thunder sounded really scary but it was just hot air mixing with cold rhetoric and Harriet Miers will, in fact, remain an unknown quantity right up till her first consent or dissent.  And I would hope, regardless of one’s political persuasion or judicial philosophy, we could all agree this is a bad way to proceed.  Having a mystery man, or woman, is a sure fire way to assure we’ll have nothing to object.  By default, does that mean she commands our unqualified support? 

The Plastic State of Abortion Politics

(Archive Mar. 2003)

It’s the anniversary week for the historical Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade and in no place is this holiday more inescapable than Washington, DC. Since I live and work in the middle of all the marches and demonstrations I can’t help but consider the current state of the pro-life/pro-choice debate. This year holds some extra significance because it is the 30th anniversary of Roe. I was here last year and the hoopla was all the same. Unlike most political issues abortion attracts the same amount of fervor on off-year anniversaries as big round numbered ones. An oft repeated criticism of the battle is that it has become oversimplified. The once thoughtful arguments of both sides have spun down to sound bites, buzz phrases and the same tired speeches repeated, almost recited, with two opposing sides playing choreographed roles like the Sharks vs. the Jets. Even the signs are exactly the same and each side has a specific color scheme. Pro-lifers tend to have red signs with white lettering and pro-choicers tend to have blue signs with white lettering. The slogans are the same too except for a few clever parodies of the other side’s signs. Even the chants are the same. No single object represents the oversimplification of this hugely complex issue more than the plastic fetus.

Plastic fetuses are everywhere. I see them carried by most pro-lifers and some even complete outfits as accessories. There is a wide variety of shape and size in the plastic fetus. Most resemble a fully developed 4-month-old infant curled into the fetal position. The use of a baby as the image rather than something that looks like a fetus or embryo illustrates the argument of baby killer. Some have navels or umbilical stubs but none have genitals and most don’t have mouths. They range from thumb-sized to gigantic. Some have the features and proportions of little bald 40-year-old men curled up. One woman on the metro wore hers on a necklace like a charm beside a tiny bottle and pacifier. This juxtaposition of images again emphasizes that there is no difference between the baby you hold and the fetus attached to your internal organs. The meaning of this fashion statement did not occur to me immediately because I was temporarily distracted by the thought of some expecting mother giving her fetus a bottle.

Some plastic fetuses aren’t curled up at all. Their arms are folded in front of them but their legs are stretched out as if they can stand upright (or maybe dance like the one on Ally McBeal). These are possibly the most disturbing because their features actually resemble those of fetuses but they also remind me of those Troll dolls that used to be so popular. If the plastic fetus came with long, combable, bright hair the pro-lifers could have the next Tickle-Me Elmo. Despite the variety in shape and size plastic fetuses tend to come in only one color. Although a disproportionate number of abortions occur in minority communities, plastic fetuses are all the light, peachy color Crayola used to call ‘skin.’ It took Mattel decades to give Barbie a black counterpart so we can only hope a plastic fetus of color is just around the corner.

So many questions surrounding the purpose and meaning of the plastic fetus perplex me. For starters, where does one get one? It is odd for there to be so many when I’ve never seen them in stores. Is there competition among plastic fetus producers or does one company have the monopoly? On a particularly boring afternoon at the office I decided to click around on-line to see if I could get my own. No luck. I even went to E-Bay and searched with the phrases ‘plastic fetus’ then just ‘fetus’ and then for kicks ‘unborn child’ figuring I’d have more success if I used pro-life lingo. I found some rock and roll paraphernalia but still no plastic fetus. The presence of the ubiquitous fetus dolls is confusing enough but the inability to determine their origin compounds the mystery.

Another round of questions deals with the exact message of these props. On my one stop bus ride to work a woman stood on the corner with one of the straight-legged fetuses tucked by her side. Just before the bus completely passed her she shot up her arm and gave the fetus a few proud shakes and let out a holler. The gesture was startling. It was quasi-tribal and definitely intended to send some sort of message to my fellow commuters. What I don’t know. Another image I saw on the local news was of a man holding a large fetus by the legs and repeatedly banging its head against the steps of the Supreme Court. I tried to make some connection between this action and the positions of the pro-life movement but came up empty handed. Was the man mad at his fetus? More importantly, did that fetus learn its lesson?

At some level I feel jilted because my side doesn’t have an equivalent tool. The pro-choice argument cannot be so succinctly summarized by a doll. I can’t wave around a plastic teenage woman whose parents kick her out of the house and has to drop out of school because she got pregnant. No material can be molded into a model that questions the role of government in personal, moral, medical decisions. Despite the apparent advantage the plastic fetus provides, it ultimately distracts from the current spectrum of abortion politics.

Of all the abortion related bills debated in recent years few if any have anything to do with fetuses. The debate for a few years now centers on biotechnology and cell research. The same arguments are shouted back and forth but they apply less and less to reality. The heated debate over stem cell research is about cells, not fetuses. The argument against it is the usual protection of human life but the subject in question is a pitri dish of fertilized eggs in a clinic. These are leftovers that will never exist inside the womb of a woman and if not used for research will be thrown away. If, according to pro-lifers, the fertilized eggs are human beings then why is it preferable for them to be disposed of instead of destroyed during research? How is opposition to stem cell research protecting the life of an unborn child?

Another current debate involves RU-486 which keeps an embryo from imbedding in the womb during its early stages of cellular division shortly after conception. Plastic fetus? If the termination of a fetus was the primary concern of the pro-life sect wouldn’t they be cheering technology that allows us to terminate pregnancies before the fetal stage instead of shaking dolls and shrieking at it?

About the only issue currently involving a fetus is the proposed ban on partial birth abortion. This procedure easily has majority opposition even in the pro-choice community because it is tantamount to infanticide. Here a plastic fetus is applicable but ineffective. So many oppose partial birth abortion but it is still legal because both sides have an all or nothing approach. Pro-choicers fear any concession to the pro-life argument could be carried all the way down to conception. The personhood argument has to be applied by pro-lifers as soon as the sperm meets the egg in order to hold its legitimacy. Right now destroying a baby halfway through its birth is legal but researching cells is not. The complexities of the issue are overlooked when the focus is all on the supposed unborn child, embodied by the plastic fetus. Neither side has effectively created rhetoric for all stages of pregnancy.

While most people see nothing immoral about killing and eating an animal they do object to killing another human. Pro-lifers use the plastic fetus to say that terminating a pregnancy is equal to murder. But the slogans and the dolls do not answer questions like what’s the difference between humans and animals? A soul? Freewill? Many would argue we have neither. If a person has a soul and freewill does a fetus? …an embryo? …a zygote? At what point in development does the soul inhabit a body and what actually constitutes humanness or the legal protections of personhood? Is there any difference between a fertilized egg and you and me and does the belief that there is no difference protect the sanctity of human life or devalue it? Can the government come up with a universal answer to these questions or let each individual figure it out for him or herself. I asked a plastic fetus but it didn’t have a mouth.

The plastic fetus has cemented its role in the theatre of abortion politics along side the shouts, signs, and speeches. Its popularity seems to be growing despite its diminishing application. As abortions continue to become more common in the earlier stages of pregnancy will it eventually be replaced by a fake, tadpole-like embryo? Will the stem cell research opponents soon be wagging giant floppy egg cells? The best image of the week came during a lunch-hour jog when I saw a couple people fighting the wind to hold onto a large, helium filled fetus balloon. If this trend continues it may now excite me to endure the mittened perkiness of Katy Couric hosting the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade for the chance to see her comment on a zygote float.