the independant fertilized ovum...or not

So in reading my new book, "Radical Womanhood: Feminine Faith in a Feminist World", (which I believe every girl should read.  There, that is my shameless plug for the day), I came to this passage that the author (Carolyn McCulley) is using to display arguments used that are pro-abortion:

"The fetus is the direct cause of pregnancy, and if it makes a woman pregnant without her consent, it severely violates her bodily integrity and liberty...Even in a medically normal pregnancy, the fetus massively intrudes on a woman's body and expropriates her liberty.  If a woman does not consent to this transformation and use of her body, the fetus's imposition constitutes injuries sufficient to justify the use of deadly force to stop it...This book expands the concept of wrongful pregnancy to include what the fertilized ovum does to a woman when it makes her pregnant without her consent.  It is the only entity that can make a woman pregnant..." (Taken from a 1996 book written by Eileen McDonagh)

Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no.  This argument is absolutely riddled with holes and some sort of vast misunderstanding.  A "fertilized ovum" does not have an independently functioning mind yet!  After a few weeks or months, depending on what part we are talking of, it has much of it's bodily functions and parts that are essential to live...but a mind with it's own will as this paragraph personifies it?  That won't come for a couple of years!  

As for the last statement, "it is the only entity that can make a woman pregnant" it is not as though there are fertilized ovums floating around just waiting to plant themselves in unsuspecting women!  If you are a woman in this day and age engaging in sexual intercouse, you had better darn well know that doing so may cause you to become pregnant (whether you are on birth control or not!).  And when most pregnancies, whether "planned" or not, occur, it is usually through WILLFUL participation on the part of the female.  It is not a problem with men any more than it is a problem with fertilized ovums.  There are no more men hiding in the bushes waiting to rape women than there are fertilized ovums floating around just waiting for the next uterus to pass by.  Though a pregnancy can happen through the cause of rape, which I am not discounting as a truly sad and traumatizing experience, the percentage of pregnancies that occur that way are extremely low.  

Whether a woman does or does not desire to be pregnant, how are you supposed to get a woman's consent?  A man is not going to say to her, "Oh honey, we are about to have sex, so if you get pregnant is that ok?"  Or, even better, the ovum, before becoming fertilized, is not going to say, "Hey potential mommy, this sperm is looking pretty good over here and I think we might hook up and get you pregnant. Sound good to you?"  The issue of "consent" seems irrelevant here.  It is not as though a woman is signing a binding legal contract.  To be pregnant can be something that is desired, yes, but as for consent?  I am not quite sure how that comes into play here.

While I am an anomoly in the fact that I am a Christian yet I think that abortion should be legal (though I disagree with the morality of it), I will leave that for another post.  Suffice to say that this viewpoint seems to come from some sort of fantasy world, and riled me up enough to have to create a post about it.

use of "narrowed" + spring break=a post where one topic is totally unrelated to the other

Current weather: 68 degrees and sunny...woohoo!

There is a link on the Iowa State homepage stating "Human sciences dean search narrowed to one".  Um...doesn't that just mean that they have picked a dean?  Maybe in this context you can "narrow" the selection down to 2 or 3, but once you get to one, that's it...you're done.

 Above: Shannon and Tyson's spring break adventure!  4 states, 6 cities, 9 days. Rock on.

So originally I had the sentence above connected to this paragraph, but I think it sounds and looks much better on its own.  Like a tagline to a movie or something.  Anyway...definitely gearing up for that...it's hard to believe that we are leaving a week from tomorrow!  I can't believe it is already spring break time...but I am definitely ready for it.  It still seems like we just started the semester though, I can't believe we are already into March.  Spring semester always flies by way faster than the fall which is fine by me, I am ready for summer!  Even though it is going to be a lot of driving, I am still excited for break.  Sitting in a car rocking out to music (well, maybe...Tyson's radio doesn't work all that well...) sounds a ton better than sitting in class all day and/or staying up all or most of the night to do homework.

Spring break countdown: 8 days

oh the things i think about

"Beautiful"=full of beauty

"Wonderful"=full of wonder

"Awful"=full of awe...?

By this logic, that also means that "awesome"=some awe. 

Somebody screwed up on this part of the English language ;)

mind doodles II

1.)  I can get $15 an hour to be an unclothed model for a life-drawing class here at ISU.  This means that I can get paid more money to take my clothes off than to be a research assistant to my professor, advancing the knowledge of mankind.  Welcome to the world.

2.)  I am not very good at adapting to change when I do not see it coming.  Maybe that sounds obvious, but let me give an example: The transition to college was not a big deal to me at all.  It was obviously supposed to be a change, and therefore it didn't bother me.  I can remember laying in bed the first night wondering if I was supposed to feel upset or lonely or something...because I didn't.  Conversely, I WAS upset last weekend when we went to eat at an at an Italian restaurant at the last minute instead of The Cafe, because I had my mind made up for one type of food, and my mind did not like transitioning to the other.  

3.)  I am trying to think of a name for the light I am designing for class/a lighting competition.  I am going the sustainable route, and am using recycled glass and pieces of glass to create the fixture.  However titling the piece is a problem.  Using "broken", "shattered", "fragment" or synonyms of those words (to reference the pieces of glass making up the luminaire) sound either too depressing or too dangerous.  Hmmm...

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Current weather: 43 degrees, feels like 36.  Sunny and wonderful :)

This is definitely my favorite time of the year.  Walking outside when it is just starting to be warm and sunny makes my whole day.  There is no other time of the year when simply walking outside can make me so (consistently) happy.  The downer, of course, is when it is beautiful and sunny one day and then snowing the next, but it just makes the next sunny day seem even better.  The next step is the first day it is warm enough to roll down the car windows and open the sun roof, (which usually means it is somewhere around 50 degrees), but it feels like a heat wave after days and days of below freezing and even below zero temperatures.  Not to mention that it is tulip time!  

I wish I was born in the spring...I would definitely rather celebrate a birthday when the snow is melting than when the snow is falling!  

mind doodles

Just some things running around in my brain lately...

1.)  I may be considered "old-fashioned" by some because I do not believe in living together before marriage.  One of the #1 excuses I hear for living together before marriage, and the one that irks me the most, is that people say, "Well I need to know what they are like before I get married to them.  What if we get married and live together and it is awful?" or something to that extent.  (On a similar vein, though not completely related to living together, is people who have sex before marriage and say, "Well what if they are bad in bed?"  and/or "Well if you wait until marriage then that's the only person you ever have sex with your entire life."  That's the POINT dummy!)  Anyway, first off, statistics show that people get divorced at a significantly higher percentage than people that wait until marriage to live together.  Secondly, it has only become "the norm" to live together before marriage during about the last 60 years.  That means that for thousands and thousands of years people waited until marriage to live together and the human race has done just fine.  And lastly, if you are THAT worried about how living with your significant other will go, whether married or not, I am pretty sure you have bigger issues to worry about in your relationship.

2.)  I need to start eating healthier.  This is my reminder.

3.)  I am very, very sick of school.  I feel like I have been here forever and I am ready to be done.  Unfortunately, I have a whole nother year left.  I am actually extremely glad that I got into interior design the year that I did and consider it to be proof that God knows things better than I do, but...this is just another instance where I want to have my cake and eat it, too.  The biggest thing is that I am sick of running around and doing things for other people to try to please them and try to get that A.  And then to work hard on a project and get told everything that is wrong with it.  At least when I create a project in the real world to try and please another person, I will most likely know much more about it than my client, and will therefore be able to easily convince them that it is exactly what they want.  

4.)  Related to #3 above, I have also been very, very tired lately.  I come home every day and say "Today was such a long day."  What happened to all the short days?  Running away and doing nothing for about a week sounds awesome.  Can the whole world just be put on hold for a week?  Please?  At least my whole world?  And Tyson's?  That would be wonderful.

McCafe part II

So quite ironically, I was able to go to a McDonalds that is part McCafe the very day after I made my last blog post.  

I am sad to say that I was slightly disappointed.  The interior atmosphere I can somewhat excuse, as the McDonald's was not quite large enough to contain an entire "McCafe" addition, but served as little more than an extension to their menu in little Carroll, Iowa.  Something I cannot excuse is the fact that everything was automatic.  I stood, waiting at 8:45 am for a delicious vanilla latte to jumpstart my day, and was quite surprised when all of a sudden it appeared, after seeing no one touch the espresso machine.  I didn't even know the machine was on and working yet apparently it had been able to spit out my latte.  But there was none of the experience that makes it what it is: no grinding beans, no careful pouring of the steamed milk and mixing with the espresso...the only human touch was to put the lid securely on the cup.  I can pay 50 cents at a vending machine for that experience!

I would say that the taste was a step up from the gas station cappuccino machines that I mocked with my last post, but definitely a step down from my beloved Caribou, or even Starbucks.  I suppose you get what you pay for.  It wasn't entirely bad, but definitely could have been better.  The latte made up in sweetness what it lacked in strong, espresso taste, but that could possibly be remedied by not adding a syrup flavor to it.  

While I am not too enthused about the coffeehouse-style drinks that the McCafe has to offer, I am still enticed by their cold coffee drinks, and even their plain old cup of coffee.  Maybe my expectations were set too high by their cold coffee drinks.  At any rate, I will not be making special trips to McDonald's for coffee anytime soon (only potentially for an iced vanilla latte) but will just be happy that if I go to McDonald's for breakfast, I can have some decent coffee to go along with it.