In response:

There is so, so much other stuff I should be doing than fuming over Mr. Eric Dion Baker’s response. But you know what? I am so sick and tired of the Right’s strangle-hold on discourse in this country, their laughable belief that somehow their beliefs are under attack in the U.S. – yeah, as if Christianity could disappear from this country. As if. I am so sick of their appropriation of the values of democracy and their blindness to the GOP’s appropriation of Christianity for the GOP’s political gain- in short, I am so sick of the ignorance that comes with the GOP’s appropriation of so-called “compassionate conservatism” that gave us the last eight years of economic deterioration and introduced the beginnings of a totalitarian police state…I am so sick of people who would rather have someone who’s “human” (you know, because her 17 year-old daughter gets pregnant like so many other 17 year-olds, or because he can’t freakin’ pronounce “nuclear” -apparently like so many other West Texans) than someone who’s knowledgeable, intelligent, deliberate, and thoughtful be the leader of free world. Just because someone proclaims they read the Bible does not mean they do. And just because they proclaim they read your interpretation of the Bible, does not mean they are fit to lead the U.S. Get it?
But most importantly, I am so sick and tired of Right-wingers foreclosing conversation. I am so sick of the “my way or the highway” mentality that comes with the Right wing, although it is often couched in the form of “debate” or discussion. An example:

I think that since your side advocates the choice of abortion, and my side advocates the choice of life, perhaps we could both come together and advocate for the choice of abstinence. After all, which is safer, wear a bullet-proof vest or take the bullet out of the gun? Since you're pro-choice, maybe I should give you a third option of just getting shot and going to the hospital to have the bullet taken out.

Hahaha. Ha. How very McCain-“Bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran” of you, Mr. Baker. Let me make this clear: I understand that somewhere, somehow, some Christian way back when made it seem as if there was only one way and that way was the only right way…ever stop to think that that’s the same way other people think, you know, like those “Islamo-fascists” the Right’s hell-bent on eliminating?

But the fact is, there is not ONLY one way to think, to live, to interact, to love, to die in this world. Somewhere, way back when, that was what someone wanted you/us to believe. But you know what happens when a group of people think that there is only one way, and that way- their way- is the ONLY way of living, and that everyone should be constructed in their image? I’ll give you a few examples:

1. Because they were not white Europeans, Africans were exported from Africa and traded, bought and sold as property. They were not white males, and so they were property.

2. Because they were not white Europeans, the Native American population in this country has been systematically slaughtered and annihilated, even through the present.

3. Because they were not white European males, women were denied the right to vote and access to the public sphere. This made it okay to beat your wife, to throw her on the street, to deny her access to her children, to strip her of any property she may have inherited from her family, to deny her U.S. citizenship if she married a foreigner. It made it okay for a man to rape his wife, to have sex with her whenever, wherever, and to force numerous pregnancies on her until she died from them. It made it obscene to teach women how to prevent pregnancy, or even to know how she got pregnant. Get that? It was illegal. Even in the context of marriage, a woman could not say, “No.” Tell me how that’s okay? Better yet, tell me when the hell a man has EVER had that problem?

You know what else happens when you buy into the groupthink? You get blinded to when you’re getting taken for a ride, a la GOP-style. You close your eyes. You stop questioning. You elect a puppet douchebag like George W. Bush and vote for a political party that has never once done something that’s actually in your best interest. And you acquiesce to the atrocities of the last eight years.

But because I am a woman, however, I do NOT surrender my body to you or to anyone else. Case en pointe: we are treated as objects, as animals, which is what your post accomplishes in your rhetorical pairing of human pregnancy with animal gestation. I am not commensurate to an animal, as your analogy makes it seem. Does your wife know, Mr. Baker, that you consider her to be the same as a dog, cat, or other various livestock? And is that the thanks you give her for bearing your five children? Your rhetorical choice is compelling, though, because it is indicative of the culture in which we live: women’s labor is “owned” and not appreciated, it is discarded as simply “reproduction” and “just what women do.” Because, according to you, women, as a part of their "nature," “like being mothers” and they would rather “see their child’s first steps” than “hear about them.” And you know this, I suppose, because you’re a man, which I guess means you know better than a woman what a woman wants to do, or what is in her “nature” to be. You know what? You remember a woman named Andrea Yates? Her husband didn’t ask her what she wanted, ignored her Post-Partum Depression, and you remember what happened?

So, no, Mr. Baker, abortion is not about murder. It is about power, pure and simple. It is about asking- no, expecting, demanding- women to sacrifice their lives- their very selves- to abdicate any control over their selves and their very being- when reciprocity is never asked of men and there is simply no similar or analogous situation for men. Take your completely infuriating disregard for the violence of rape as one point on the spectrum of disregard and disrespect for women. Furthermore, your erroneous “pro-life” discourse is part and parcel of the totalizing discourse that enslaves Africans, that slaughters Native Americans, and that subjugates women. It all flows from the same logic and thinking, although you like to think it’s somehow contained within the pages of your seemingly timeless, ahistorical Bible. It’s not, and if it were, you can have it. I don't want to be part of a religion that subordinates anyone for any reason.

If we lived in a society that respected women as human beings, equal to men, we would not have the specter of abortion- women would be armed with the tools to prevent pregnancy, either by using birth control or not having sex, until they were ready.

So, please, Mr. Baker, stop speaking for me and stop speaking for what women are or want. At least give us that respect. That’s not to say that I won’t stop name-calling, because I truly think you drink the Kool-Aid. If the past eight years (maybe even the past 40) hadn’t been so freakin’ ridiculous with Rightwing nutcasery, I might have the patience to be polite. But I just don’t anymore. I’m not like some of my liberal counterparts- I’ll call it like I see it.

As for women, we know for ourselves. I mean, historically speaking, men like you have thought that we needed you to do just this, to tell us what we like to do, what makes us happy, but we don’t. Your wife takes care of five children- it seems that’s her “role” and nothing else to you- she can obviously handle herself. Let her speak for herself. More importantly, let me and other women speak for ourselves. We don’t need you or men like you. We never have.