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The story: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/12/doonesbury-abortion-strip-newspapers_n_1339378.html?ref=media

The comic: http://doonesbury.com/

Overzealous censorship much? Nothing particularly explicative in the comic. Just a liberal viewpoint on an issue. Nothing really out of the ordinary for Doonesbury.

low class

Everything is subject to humor. These are about as tasteful a couple of jokes as I can imagine on the subject.

That isn't too bad...
I mean...
As an outsider it does seem to reflect some state views on abortion...
Can't say whether it is actually accurate or not though...

That didn't really seem bad at all to me. Pretty mu h matches my view of all these bills they pass like this.

What happened to Freedom of Speech?

I'm personally opposed to abortion, but having never been in that situation I really have no business judging those who have done it. It's an overblown issue, anti-abortionists need to accept that it is an individual's choice and neither side can achieve a decisive victory over the other because you can not conclusively prove when the fetus becomes human. As long as we're not killing babies AFTER their born people need to let it go and get on with their lives.

I think it is ultimately better to prevent a birth than to bring forth a child you either can't raise or have no desire to love and nourish.

Amaya wrote:What happened to Freedom of Speech?

I don't know why this phrase keeps being bandied about, such as it was when Rush Limbaugh made his comments. It is not at all relevant to the situation.

In the United States, you have the right to say what you wish with few constraints (such as yelling fire in a crowded theater, etc), and the government cannot prosecute you for making them. That is what freedom of speech means.

What it does not mean is "freedom from the consequences of what you said". It also does not mean "the freedom to say whatever you want on someone else's nickel". If you lose your job because you said something unflattering about your boss, it's not a freedom of speech issue. If you lose all of your sponsors and get dropped from a radio station because of what you said, it's not a freedom of speech issue. If you are contracted to write comic strips in a newspaper someone else publishes, and they don't like what you say and drop you, it is not a freedom of speech issue. You are free to start your own business, create your own radio station, or publish your own newspaper.

That's a simplified view, but essentially, you cannot be "censored" by a private entity, only the government has the capacity to remove your freedom of speech.

What should be considered in worse taste is the fact that Trudeau did nit make ho what is depicted in the strip. It is actually what will happen to a woman in Texas if she intends to obtain an abortion.

I may be mostly opposed to abortion, but I am the least qualified person to determine who should be getting one.

Click on the link for the huffington post, not the doonesbury site.

Ouze wrote:

Amaya wrote:What happened to Freedom of Speech?

I don't know why this phrase keeps being bandied about, such as it was when Rush Limbaugh made his comments. It is not at all relevant to the situation.

In the United States, you have the right to say what you wish with few constraints (such as yelling fire in a crowded theater, etc), and the government cannot prosecute you for making them. That is what freedom of speech means.

What it does not mean is "freedom from the consequences of what you said". It also does not mean "the freedom to say whatever you want on someone else's nickel". If you lose your job because you said something unflattering about your boss, it's not a freedom of speech issue. If you lose all of your sponsors and get dropped from a radio station because of what you said, it's not a freedom of speech issue. If you are contracted to write comic strips in a newspaper someone else publishes, and they don't like what you say and drop you, it is not a freedom of speech issue. You are free to start your own business, create your own radio station, or publish your own newspaper.

That's a simplified view, but essentially, you cannot be "censored" by a private entity, only the government has the capacity to remove your freedom of speech.

Most cities have a single newspaper. Censoring select Doonesbury strips while showing others is akin to denial of freedom of speech.

If newspapers adopted a blanket policy that abortion and other similar issues are so contraversial they just do not want them in any comic strips then fair enough, I think the comic is perfectly tame but if they let it through then they'd have to start drawing a line about exactly what is unacceptable and that'd be a nightmare.

On the other hand, there is a long history of good political cartoons, and it'd be a shame to lose that because people don't want to offend their viewers. Understandable and predictable that it's happening, but a shame none the less.

sebster wrote:If newspapers adopted a blanket policy that abortion and other similar issues are so contraversial they just do not want them in any comic strips then fair enough, I think the comic is perfectly tame but if they let it through then they'd have to start drawing a line about exactly what is unacceptable and that'd be a nightmare.

On the other hand, there is a long history of good political cartoons, and it'd be a shame to lose that because people don't want to offend their viewers. Understandable and predictable that it's happening, but a shame none the less.

They already do draw a line. That's censorship. They regulate how many times x has to happen before you go up a rating in a movie. Hell, if you watch Airplane your views of censorship will be baffled beyond measurement. The film is PG but you see a well endowed pair of bare breasts right there on the screen. The jokes show people getting killed or are lewd at times. By today's standards this would have an R rating slapped on it right off the bat.

I'm just baffled by this piece of censorship. I just don't understand how it can be classified as overly offensive. Any given political satire will be offensive to someone. It's not describing or showing some gruesome process of abortion. It's just making fun of the legislature invading the medical procedure.

Surtur wrote:They already do draw a line. That's censorship. They regulate how many times x has to happen before you go up a rating in a movie. Hell, if you watch Airplane your views of censorship will be baffled beyond measurement. The film is PG but you see a well endowed pair of bare breasts right there on the screen. The jokes show people getting killed or are lewd at times. By today's standards this would have an R rating slapped on it right off the bat.

Why did you wander off into some conversation about film censorship? That has absolutely nothing to do with how newspapers might choose to self censor comics on contentious issues.

I'm just baffled by this piece of censorship. I just don't understand how it can be classified as overly offensive. Any given political satire will be offensive to someone. It's not describing or showing some gruesome process of abortion. It's just making fun of the legislature invading the medical procedure.

As I said in the post you quoted, it's likely they've got a blanket ban on the issue, because they really don't want to have to start drawing a line on exactly where a comic on abortion goes from acceptable to unacceptable. That'd be an impossible thing to do in an objective manner, and so instead they take the simple, objective position that comics are not to address abortion.

The root of the abortion controversy lies in the strident nature of the religious right. They see it as their obligation to force their morality on others. Unfortunately, they are gaining in power all the time. What they fail to realize is the lesson of prohibition, and the war on drugs. Making something illegal never gets rid of it, it merely puts it in the hands of the criminal element.

Amaya wrote:Most cities have a single newspaper. Censoring select Doonesbury strips while showing others is akin to denial of freedom of speech.

No, it's not. Newspapers are a private business. If your city only has a single paper, and you're not happy with the content, you are free to lobby them to change their content such as by starting a boycott to get them to change their views (pressure them economically), or at worst, start your own newspaper. That's how freedom of speech works.


The only rights that Doonesbury has as far as how they are carried in the paper are the ones they negotiated for themselves when they signed a contract with the paper to carry their strip (in essence, obviously there is more to this technically). If they don't like how they are being treated by a private company, they have the right to not provide a strip at all and shop it elsewhere.

warpcrafter wrote:The root of the abortion controversy lies in the strident nature of the religious right. They see it as their obligation to force their morality on others. Unfortunately, they are gaining in power all the time.

That's a bit simplistic. The religious right has certainly gained ground on abortion, and won over an increasing number of people to their view that life begins at conception therefore abortion is murder. But at the same time the religious right have been steadily losing ground on issues like gay rights - consider where gay rights were twenty years ago compared to today.

Amaya wrote:

Ouze wrote:

Amaya wrote:What happened to Freedom of Speech?

I don't know why this phrase keeps being bandied about, such as it was when Rush Limbaugh made his comments. It is not at all relevant to the situation.

In the United States, you have the right to say what you wish with few constraints (such as yelling fire in a crowded theater, etc), and the government cannot prosecute you for making them. That is what freedom of speech means.

What it does not mean is "freedom from the consequences of what you said". It also does not mean "the freedom to say whatever you want on someone else's nickel". If you lose your job because you said something unflattering about your boss, it's not a freedom of speech issue. If you lose all of your sponsors and get dropped from a radio station because of what you said, it's not a freedom of speech issue. If you are contracted to write comic strips in a newspaper someone else publishes, and they don't like what you say and drop you, it is not a freedom of speech issue. You are free to start your own business, create your own radio station, or publish your own newspaper.

That's a simplified view, but essentially, you cannot be "censored" by a private entity, only the government has the capacity to remove your freedom of speech.

Most cities have a single newspaper. Censoring select Doonesbury strips while showing others is akin to denial of freedom of speech.

NO its not. Denial of freedom of speech is if the government, say the FCC, came in stopped publication. Alternatively as others have proposed on CNN if they put Limbaugh against a wall and shot him. Thats denial of freedom of speech.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

warpcrafter wrote:The root of the abortion controversy lies in the strident nature of the religious right. They see it as their obligation to force their morality on others. Unfortunately, they are gaining in power all the time. What they fail to realize is the lesson of prohibition, and the war on drugs. Making something illegal never gets rid of it, it merely puts it in the hands of the criminal element.

The moment a fetus is viable abortion is instantly illegal. Pro abortionists are living (pun intended) on borrowed time, according to SCOTUS.

sebster wrote:

Surtur wrote:They already do draw a line. That's censorship. They regulate how many times x has to happen before you go up a rating in a movie. Hell, if you watch Airplane your views of censorship will be baffled beyond measurement. The film is PG but you see a well endowed pair of bare breasts right there on the screen. The jokes show people getting killed or are lewd at times. By today's standards this would have an R rating slapped on it right off the bat.

Why did you wander off into some conversation about film censorship? That has absolutely nothing to do with how newspapers might choose to self censor comics on contentious issues.

I'm just baffled by this piece of censorship. I just don't understand how it can be classified as overly offensive. Any given political satire will be offensive to someone. It's not describing or showing some gruesome process of abortion. It's just making fun of the legislature invading the medical procedure.

As I said in the post you quoted, it's likely they've got a blanket ban on the issue, because they really don't want to have to start drawing a line on exactly where a comic on abortion goes from acceptable to unacceptable. That'd be an impossible thing to do in an objective manner, and so instead they take the simple, objective position that comics are not to address abortion.

I was trying to give an example but my mind tends to wander. I was inferring the oddity of censorship in it's methodology and how it quantifies what to censor.

Well this would also imply that the newspaper outright ignores the current round of abortion debates going on and refuses to run political satire. It's not like mixing the two suddenly becomes an unholy cocktail. The censorship implies that there was bias of the newspaper and that the comic was not displaying their message. While not illegal, it does raise questions of journalistic integrity. It itself starts drawing lines at what is okay to make fun of and what is not okay rather than "what is tasteful."

Surtur wrote:While not illegal, it does raise questions of journalistic integrity. It itself starts drawing lines at what is okay to make fun of and what is not okay rather than "what is tasteful."

Every publication has to draw lines about what they think is acceptable, or more accurately, what won't lose them sponsors or cause them headaches. I notice that before this issue people never complained that there isn't nudity or ribald jokes in newspapers like there are in Playboy or Penthouse. Cartoonists aren't journalists either, so I don't think journalistic integrity really applies anyway. Most are just humorists, and a few are satirists. I don't think they decided not to print the Doonesbury comic becuase of the abortion joke, but becuase Doonesbury has never really been all that funny. Amusing on occasion, but never really funny.

Frazzled wrote:The moment a fetus is viable abortion is instantly illegal. Pro abortionists are living (pun intended) on borrowed time, according to SCOTUS.

Well then, if that's the decision of the Supreme Court, then abortion is legal until 8 Weeks.

For the first week of pregnancy, it is a zygote until it actually attaches to the uterine wall. Then it becomes an embryo for the next 7 weeks. It's not until cell differentiation is mostly complete that the embryo enters the final stage and becomes known as a fetus.

We have an official decision we can agree on.

(Well, probably not...)

Vulcan wrote:

Frazzled wrote:The moment a fetus is viable abortion is instantly illegal. Pro abortionists are living (pun intended) on borrowed time, according to SCOTUS.

Well then, if that's the decision of the Supreme Court, then abortion is legal until 8 Weeks.

For the first week of pregnancy, it is a zygote until it actually attaches to the uterine wall. Then it becomes an embryo for the next 7 weeks. It's not until cell differentiation is mostly complete that the embryo enters the final stage and becomes known as a fetus.

We have an official decision we can agree on.

(Well, probably not...)

None of what you said means anything. I said viable. I didn't say it had to be viable in said female, just viable.
Once the first egg is brought to term outside the womb its game over. Per SCOTUS thats when the State's compelling state interest kicks in.

Is it weird that my only problem with the strip was that it was unfunny?

Melissia wrote:Is it weird that my only problem with the strip was that it was unfunny?

I must agree here.

I think this whole story is just a larger commentary on the growing irrelevance of the "Old Media." Anyone who didn't get to see the comic strip in whatever paper can just look for it on the internet if they really can't go a day without reading Doonesbury, whatever the subject it happens to describe.

But it's not a FETUS until 8 weeks. So a viable FETUS, by definition, cannot exist until the 8th week.

I know what you're trying to say is that as soon as a zygote is viable it counts. In which case a lot of women are guilty of 'abortion' without doing a thing because a surprising number of zygotes fail to attach and become embryos. And if you allow that zygotes don't count, then you have to allow the morning-after pill which prevents attachment in the first place.

Either way, you face a legal conundrum because these holes must be plugged in a legal setting. You can't just use common sense, the law makes no allowance for reasonable interpretations, it must be specific.

So either we have to find a way to track and punish women whose zygotes don't attach, or we have to allow morning-after pills. Let 'natural' abortions slide will result in someone filing a lawsuit.

Dumb, but that's the American legals system for you.

Eh, I agreed with that strip and it wasn't even funny to me. Unless you're Stephen Colbert or something, it's hard to create a funny spin on an issue like that.

Vulcan wrote:But it's not a FETUS until 8 weeks. So a viable FETUS, by definition, cannot exist until the 8th week.

I know what you're trying to say is that as soon as a zygote is viable it counts. In which case a lot of women are guilty of 'abortion' without doing a thing because a surprising number of zygotes fail to attach and become embryos. And if you allow that zygotes don't count, then you have to allow the morning-after pill which prevents attachment in the first place.

Either way, you face a legal conundrum because these holes must be plugged in a legal setting. You can't just use common sense, the law makes no allowance for reasonable interpretations, it must be specific.

So either we have to find a way to track and punish women whose zygotes don't attach, or we have to allow morning-after pills. Let 'natural' abortions slide will result in someone filing a lawsuit.

Dumb, but that's the American legals system for you.

It doesn't have to be a fetus. Just a fertilized egg.
Its not "dumb" its protecting a separate life. SCOTUS Says once that puppy can be made viable its adios muchachos for the right to an abortion.

Protip the future's scary with what can or won't happen. Anything is possible but we're all dead men walking.

Frazzled wrote:It doesn't have to be a fetus. Just a fertilized egg.
Its not "dumb" its protecting a separate life. SCOTUS Says once that puppy can be made viable its adios muchachos for the right to an abortion.

It's not that the concept of protecting a life is bizarre (I won't use "dumb") so much as where you drew that line. That the SCOTUS made that determination regarding any fertilized egg is news to me and I'd like to see your source for where they made that particular opinion.

Ouze wrote:

Frazzled wrote:It doesn't have to be a fetus. Just a fertilized egg.
Its not "dumb" its protecting a separate life. SCOTUS Says once that puppy can be made viable its adios muchachos for the right to an abortion.

It's not that the concept of protecting a life is bizarre (I won't use "dumb") so much as where you drew that line. That the SCOTUS made that determination regarding any fertilized egg is news to me and I'd like to see your source for where they made that particular opinion.

Its under the concept of viability.

I say life Begins at Arousal!

Anyways, the comic wasn't funny.

I giggled at the comic.



And feel rather badly right now because of it.