Bitchslapped

Right-wing performance artiste Ann Coulter supports forced forced abortions on unmarried women who get pregnant!

Here she is getting smacked around by the ladies of ABC's The View today:

Coulter is doing a media tour to promote her latest book which is full of her usual slanders, half-truths and outright falsehoods. But this time, instead of just going for politicians and liberals, she attacks single mothers, as if single mothers don't suffer enough stigmatization.

"Single motherhood is like a farm team for future criminals and social outcasts," she writes, claiming that all of society's ills can be attributed to the fact that ''liberals hate marriage.'' The crime rate is directly linked to the rise in illegitimate births, she insists.

So what's the answer, Ann?

Force widows to give up their kids? Make unhappy couples stay together? Make single women who get pregnant have abortions? Lock up all the unmarried ladies?

Hmm. There's an idea. Coulter herself is a bachelorette.

P.S. This is also a good case for bringing home the troops.

Comments

[Chris Moorehead]

If "liberals hate marriage", why is the divorce rate in "godless" east-cost, blue states so much lower than that of the "virtuous" red states? And why is Ann Coulter still a spinster? I'm almost her age (depending on which of her driver's licences you check), yet have been happily married for almost twenty years (to a very outspoken feminist who makes Antonia look like Gwen Landolt!), with two lovely children. How is this possible?

[Kat]

Gah! I wish I'd held on to a copy of this study (because I know that if this gets approved by the moderators, there will be people asking for the numbers). [deep breath] Anyways:

When I was in teacher's college, I came across a study that counted every student record in a high school that noted the student was from a single-parent family, then correlated it with behaviour and marks. You guessed it: almost all of the kids had bad grades, bad behaviour, bad attendance, etc. Then the researchers did a census of the entire student body, and discovered that there were actually twice as many kids from single-parent families as had been noted in the student records. Why were the other kids not noted for their family structure? They had good grades, good attendance, kept their noses clean. In other words, single parenthood was only noted when it was a problem.

By the same token: okay, maybe Ann Coulter is right, and 80% of all prison inmates come from single-parent families. But what per cent is that of the general single-parent family population? For me, that's where her numbers fall down second.

They fall down first because I am from a single-parent family (my dad passed away before any of my brothers or I were in high school), and we all went on to good grades in school and decent jobs. We have enough friends who are from the same situation -- as Dave Eggers notes in A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, you tend to find each other -- that I'm completely convinced this is a red herring argument.

[...pat.]

I heard a rumour a few weeks ago that she had had her jaws wired shut. Sad to see that isn't the case. Lovely to see Barbara Walters and Whoopie Goldberg analysing her book and confronting Ann.

[MensRightsNow]

What an embarrassing display of womanhood...all of them...gotta give Coulter props for entering the lion's den, that takes serious balls. God I'm glad I'm a man!

Kat, why do you assume your anecdote about successes in YOUR life despite your dad's passing somehow trumps social science research? Of course there are single mom success stories, unfortunately there are far too many failures. Kids need their dads, Jane and Finch is a matriarchy, no anecdotes needed.

[johnnykap]

"she attacks single mothers". Thus spake the Zerb.

No, she does not. She attacks the ideology of liberalism that glorifies single motherhood.

One would think that a lifelong reporter like Antonia would be able to discern the difference between the two things and relay that to her readers in an unbiased fashion.

Wouldn't one?

[sooey]

Ah, sexism and racism - never far apart those two.

But I like how Ann dives down to the lowest common denominator in the Rightwing cesspool to dredge up an argument. She's got moxy. Slime covered moxy, but moxy just the same.

[Keith]

Antonia, Is that girl friend of your's Sooey advocating people to punch men in the face on her feminist blog. Funny how you didn't mention these feminist groups that trive on ANGER in your article on angry men. Opps, sorry I forgot the feninist golden rule, do as she sayes not as she does. NOT!!!!!

[Antonia Zerbisias]

No she's advocating that everybody punch stupid politicians in the face. She doesn't care if they are male or female. She's also making a joke.

Here it is:

''The next time a Conservative runs for political office and demands your vote because he wants to run government like a business, say,'Sorry, I'm going to vote for the person who wants to run government LIKE A GOVERNMENT!!!' and then punch him in the face to make sure he understands what you're saying.''

But hey Keith, maybe we should stop saying ''he'' all the time and say ''she'' instead.

Yeah. That would be the uber-feminist thing to do. I bet you'd be on board for that, eh? eh?

[sooey]

I'm not doing 25 ladies push-ups per day
Just to keep osteoporosis away.

[Kat]

@MensRightsNow: I said single parent families, and the study didn't discriminate between kids with moms only and kids with dads only. Why did you assume otherwise?

"Children need their fathers" -- I never disputed that. I did need my father. But he died. Despite that, we made it through okay, in part because we all agreed it would be a greater dishonour to his memory to fall apart. BTW, he hated it when people hijacked other people's arguments.

I was straightforward about my evidence being anecdotal. What a pity you can't be straightforward with your reading of it.

[Keith]

Once again Antonia, it's feminist inflecting gender into a genderless issue. Just like your photoshop fabricated feminist propoganda about Disney, or should I say another fine piece of feminist journalism.

[Chris Moorehead]

Yeah, Walt Disney was far too busy hunting down union organizers and destroying the lives of alleged communist sympathizers to concern himself with writing sexist letters to aspiring illustrators...

[Kim]

I'm sure the majority of people would rather not raise their kids alone - father or mother. The thing is that sometimes it has to be done. What if your spouse is abusive to you and the kids? What if one parent leaves a note takes off and vanishes leaving the kids behind? What if one parent dies?

It happens. It happens a lot. If single parents are glamorized it's because it's so darn impressive that they kept on keeping on and did the best they could themselves. It's rarely a choice of convenience, that's for sure.

[...pat.]

Keith: it's not photoshopped propaganda. It was photographed by the woman's grandson. See my post under the topic, which includes more links.

[The Stygian and his Shemitish Dogs]

Sooey Sweetie,

I'm afraid you've got it backwards.

Business is far less corrupt than government.

Of course, you’ll remember Enron. One point that is often forgotten is that it was known what figures the proper accounting should give, and who was responsible. Therefore it proved possible to nail the culprits.

Contrast this with the European Union Commission in Brussels. Apparently the budget has been a black hole for years and years, and nobody even knows or cares how much has been lost, or who may have been responsible.

And I haven’t even begun to discuss UN-ron, the “diversity recession” in the US . . . . . . . .