:: The S.I.C.L.E. Cell ::

:: Monday, January 17, 2005 ::

Finally, finale...

From Carlin's Pork Chops...

"Then there's the fetus-unborn child argument. Even leaving aside personal feelings, the semantics of this alone are fun to unravel. To my way of thinking, whatever it is, if it's unborn, it's not a child. A fetus is not a child, because it hasn't been born yet."

Tell that to Tracy.

"That's why it's called a fetus."

I hear tell that "fetus" is latin for "little one". I call my 6-year-old "little one" all the time. Possibly, I could refer to him as a fetus and be technically correct. I also call him a kindergartner or a tyke. Sometimes I even refer to him as a little dickens. My daughter is swiftly approaching toddlerhood. Right now I affectionately refer to her as "the grub". At times I've referred to both my children as "pups".

Zygote, blastocyst, embryo, fetus, infant, toddler, pre-schooler, kindergartner, adolescent, pre-teen, teen, adult, senior citizen... all different stages of human existence. My point is, what's in a name? Apparently, Carlin seems to answer "everything".

"You can call it an unborn fetus if you want (it's redundant), but you can't call it an unborn child. Because -- not to belabor this -- to be a child, it has to be born. Remember?"

I remember this.

"The word unborn may sound wonderful to certain people, but it doesn't tell you anything. You could say a Volkswagen is unborn. But what would it mean."

"Choice" may sound wonderful to George Carlin, but it doesn't tell you anything.

Carlin is taking a bus to get to the bathroom from the kitchen.

BUT... in answer to his asinine point...

If we're talking about abortion, then we can assume "choice" refers to abortion and "unborn" refers to gestating humans. I might add that doctors often refer to gestating humans as "babies". I've been pregnant 4 times, and all of my doctors have referred to the "blob on the screen" as my "baby". My pregnancy books also refer to the unborn child as "baby" even though the terms for the stages of human development are sprinkled intermittently throughout.

"The fanatics have another name for fetuses. They call them the pre-born. Now we're getting creative."

I agree. I always thought the term "pre-born" was a little ridiculous. It's almost a nod to the abortion industry. Imho, it validates the charge that "unborn" means "unhuman". It doesn't. Unborn refers to a gestating being. If a farmer is examining his pregnant cow and refers to her unborn we know he's not talking about a potato. He's talking about a baby cow. If an ob/gyn is performing a sonogram and refers to the unborn, we know he is not talking about a Volkswagen. This is common sense. We don't have to dumb it down merely because the abortion supporters choose to convert fact to fiction. We can continue to use the term "unborn" and it can continue to mean "a living, gestating human being".

"If you accept pre-born, I think you would have to say that, at the moment of birth, we go instantly from being pre-born to being pre-dead. Makes sense, doesn't it?"

About as much sense as giving fruitcake to someone you like.

Look, I bought a pre-cooked ham but the package said "pre-cooked" not "pre-consumed". If the company had wanted to confuse or distract consumers I suppose they could have said "pre-consumed", "pre-digested", or even "pre-decompsed" ham. This would be silly. Everyone knows the point is that the ham has already been cooked. "Pre-born" while also a somewhat silly term, obviously conveys that a living being is in the period of gestation. (George, George, George.)

"Technically, we're all pre-dead."

Technically, Carlin is pre-dead, and the re-born are pre-immortal.

"Although, if you think about it even harder, the word pre-dead would best be reserved for describing stillborn babies. The post-born pre-dead."

Two seconds ago George described the living as pre-dead. So how can the dead be pre-dead? A stillborn child is still because he's already dead. And really... when did stillborn children become comedic fodder? I guess right around the time getting laughs off of aborted babies became acceptable.

"By the way, I think the reason conservatives want all these babies to be born is that they simply like the idea of birth. That's why so many of them have been born again. They can't get enough of it."

1. While we are slicing and dicing language here, I must point out that all aborted babies are born. Some are born in underpants, toilets, beds, bedpans, suction tubes, hotel rooms and even on the front lawn of the local abortion facility. Some are born whole or in pieces, dead or even "accidentally" alive. So to clarify, everyone wants babies to be born, especially abortion seekers. It's just that some of us want them to be born alive and healthy at the natural end of a pregnancy and some of us want them to be born dead as doornails as soon as possible.

2. Many conservatives, be they secular or sectarian, want "all these babies" to be born alive because they're already alive, and to prevent them from being born they would have to be killed. The Declaration of Independence doesn't support this, and radical conservatives are kind of "into" America. They also stubbornly oppose killing innocent children and physically/emotionally hurting moms. Many conservatives believe that all of humanity deserves better and can do better than abortion.

That's a whole lot for Carlin to put in his pipe. Let's just hope his stint at the rehab center won't prevent him from smoking it.

Previous posts in the Carlin series:
Post One
Post Two
Post Three
Post Four
Post Five
Post Six
Post Seven
Post Eight
Post Nine
Post Ten
Post Eleven
Post Twelve

:: ashli 12:01 AM # ::
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