Saturday, August 2, 2008

Do Not Tell Me I Am The Source Of Your Knock-Up. The Mud Elephant, Wading Through The Sea, Leaves No Tracks.

Once again, our heroine saves herself the trouble of coming up w/something clever & original by referring to another web log. (Not unlike the way it's done chez moi, but I digress.)

I've never had a baby, of course[.]
That goes w/o saying. (P. S.: We're all very appreciative of that.)
The interesting question he doesn't ask is what this would do to the politics of parenting.
By "parenting" she means "abortion." (Seriously. Read it.)

The minute you can take an aborted fetus and put it in an artificial womb, that argument falls away, and we get down to what pro-choicers really care about: not having a kid.
Ectogenesis must be pretty special if you can take an "aborted fetus," slap it into one of these artificial wombs, & it will come back to life & grow to term.

I can construct a libertarian argument for a right not to parent, but once the pregnancy leaves the sacred space of the individual body, both the logical and the emotional arguments get a lot weaker. What will society look like when unwanted pregnancies start turning, once again, into unwanted kids?
Can she "construct" (Betcha any argument McM. constructs would collapse in a heap of watery concrete & sub-standard rebar.) an argument for her continuing to pontificate for money? Or "deconstruct" (I know, not correctly used, but how can I resist?) this connection between the pregnancy (fetus?) leaving the woman's body &, well, anything? Does she mean pregnancy in general, having accidentally added the "the" there? Is there an implication that some future theocracy will require any woman who is pregnant to check the embryo/fetus in an artificial womb?

Or, in classic FMM style, what in the hell is she talking about?

Also sad to note: Mlle. McArdle received three times as many comments as the original item @ EconLog.

7 comments:

Susan of Texas said...

There was an episode of "Mork and Mindy" where Mindy got upset when she found out she wouldn't become pregnant with her and Mork's baby, he would lay an egg instead. That old tv show made more sense than Megan's post.

Let's see, someone's going to pay $10,000 to save a baby that was going to be aborted? Or make abortion illegal and force tax-payers to pay for incubation? For an "economist," Megan doesn't think much about money.

M. Bouffant said...

Wouldn't just be the incubation, either. The final result would probably be many unwanted foster children, all screwed up & released on society at 18, unless they had already run away from the foster home to prostitute themselves on the streets. The more things change...

NutellaonToast said...

I'm all for policies that increase the number of prostitutes. The larger the supply, the lower the cost!

Ellis Weiner said...

This is fucking incoherent. MM acknowledges the privacy issue in abortion, but gives the back of her hand to those who (she imagines) pretend that not-wanting-a-kid is the "real" issue.

But, Megan, dear, the privacy issue is the SOCIAL aspect of pregnancy/abortion. It's where the political discussion takes place. By definition, it's means to the end of "I don't want this kid."

Leave it to a libertarian to think she's trumped an argument by invoking real life, when all along the real life component has been so obvious, and fundamental, that no one else has felt it necessary to mention it.

Libertarianism is just one big Aspberger's circle jerk, with graduate degrees, isn't it.

Ellis Weiner said...

Actually what I just wrote is incoherent, too.

I mean, "gives the back of her hand to those who (she imagines) pretend that not-wanting-a-kid ISN'T the "real" issue.

We regret the confusion.

Anonymous said...

Ask Frank Zappa, the quote is from his record

Anonymous said...

"Do Not Tell Me I Am Source Of Your Knock-Up. The Mud Elephant, Wading Through The Sea, Leaves No Tracks." Is from The Fugs' It Crawled into my Hand, Honest.


Credit where credit is due.