The View & Other Ignorant Bullshit

Why, Lord? Why would a smart, accomplished woman like Barbara Walters put her name and reputation on the inane, ill-informed drivel that is The View? Has she gotten a tad senile in her golden years? Does she think by surrounding herself with the likes of that half-wit Elisabeth Hasselbeck she’ll appear smarter? Or hip? Or younger? *SIGH*

In case you haven’t seen the clip, dear Elisabeth went on a bit of a rant in the discussion about the Plan B emergency contraceptive pill. The child basically spun out and dissolved into a loudly half-shrieking-half-crying dervish of overly simplistic moral platitudes. Barbara had to step in and settle her down. The worst part of the whole fiasco is that neither she NOR Barbara had their facts straight. Elisabeth went on a rant about the value of “life” and how it begins at conception and she feels sooooo strongly about that- apparently strongly enough to turn into a screeching whiny mess on national television. And dumbass Barbara fuels the whole misunderstanding by saying Plan B prevents implantation. PLAN B PREVENTS CONCEPTION! Even by Elisabeth’s definition of “life,” Plan B doesn’t constitute abortion. The segment dissolved (as these kinds of conversations often do) into an emotional wreck sans fact or logic.

Repeat after me folks: Plan B is not RU-486. They work in entirely different ways. Plan B prevents ovulation after unprotected sex. RU-486 either prevents implantation or causes the body to shed the uterine lining housing an already fertilized and implanted pregnancy. Plan B is basically putting birth control pills (which work by preventing ovulation) on fast forward. Plan B PREVENTS ABORTIONS by giving women a way to prevent fertilization in the first place and avoiding having to terminate an existing pregnancy!

Now, is RU-486 abortion? Absolutely. And it’s legal. Get over it. Someone made the point on a message board I read that the hair we leave in our combs or the skin cells in our bedsheets have more genetic information in them than does a blastocyst in the early weeks of pregnancy. The real kicker is that RU-486 actually mimics a natural process in the body! Do people really think every single egg that gets fertilized comes to term as a baby? A huge, huge percentage of fertile women who have unprotected heterosexual sex (whether for purpose of procreation or as a result of tequila- whatever) will conceive, but never know it because the body just doesn’t let the egg implant or sheds it before the pregnancy gets all that well established.

Oh, I know, I know… that’s “God’s will”. Isn’t there any room in people’s thinking for the concept that perhaps humans exercising their free will is “God’s will” as well? Why would God have given us this kind of thought, this kind of power over our lives, if it weren’t a part of his/her plan? I believe in God, but I also believe that everything happens as it is intended. Are we so arrogant that we believe we, as piddly humans, can subvert God’s plan? Lives come into the world or don’t as God intends it, whether through the seeming cruelty of nature or through choices we’re moved to make in our lives. But don’t think for a second God doesn’t have a hand in AAAAALLLLLLLL of it. Stick this in your brain for a while… by trying to force limitations on the choices of others, you’re actually subverting God’s will yourself.