I'm running out of steam, Christopher, and have to get some things done before The Sopranos, which I hope you're seeing, if you have HBO.
But I was aware that my list was tendentious when I wrote it, and was looking forward to pointing out the fundamentalist cruelties, or lack of concern about human suffering, that I feel have been amply displayed here. I won't go looking, but i'll remind readers of the thread of some of the religiously-based reactions to the Gag Rule. Of the greater importance given to assuring gestation of a fertilized egg than to the suffering of the poor, pregnant third world AIDS patient and her soon-to-be orphaned infant-- multiplied by thousands.
Do you remember Rick Julian, Christopher? From Feelies? And his statement that he didn't "rue" the suffering of Pinjira Begum, the young Bangladeshi mother whose slow dying of arsenic poisoning on the floor of her hut, next to the bed of her contemptuous husband (arsenic had made Pinjira ugly) and his pretty new wife was described in an article in the NYT? Or the suffering of the other millions of the afflicted across the globe? Because he understood that it was all... God's will.
He made a big impression on me.
The proof that my list has not been without abundant documentation here--and we haven't even got any fundamentalist Muslims on this thread-- is in the archives, and in your memory, if you search for it.
Support of the Gag Rule in poverty stricken third world countries is probably enough to prove my main points.
Have you read the posts on SI of fundamentalists advocating forcing 13 year old girls pregnant by rape to bear the rapists' children? Forcing gestation of a fertilized egg is more important than any other consideration including common sense. Rules. Definitions. Force. Dismissal of suffering. Banning of RU486. Res ipsa loquitur.
I appreciate the tone of your post, btw. You can be very... well, nice. |
