If You Can’t Play Tennis, You Aren’t A Person
posted at 1:45 pm on October 6, 2010 by Cassy Fiano
[ Abortion ]
Originally posted at David Horowitz’s Newsreal:

Pro-abortion radicals will try to use any tool in their arsenal to dehumanize the unborn. They have to, if they want to be able to convince women to keep abortion common. After all, the pro-abortion line has never truly been about choice. There’s only one acceptable choice, and that choice is abortion. But if women continue to think that what they’re growing inside them when they’re pregnant is an actual human being, then pro-abortion fanatics have a problem. Choice USA decided that there was a simple way to fix this problem: show how ridiculous the idea that an unborn baby is an actual person is by pointing out that, erm, unborn babies can’t play tennis … and, um, therefore can’t be a real person. Makes sense, huh?
Of course, it’s not just tennis. In what is supposed to be a “humorous” video, a pregnant woman is told that she must split a bill between two people three ways (because her unborn child is a person), must play doubles tennis instead of singles (because her unborn child is a person), and must buy two tickets to a movie (because her unborn child is a person).
Gee, weren’t you just rolling on the floor laughing? The femisogynists have truly astounded us with their wit and sharp sense of humor. I guess they really proved that whole humorless feminazi stereotype wrong, huh?
All joking aside (literally), this video is utterly ridiculous. Yeah, yeah — the premise is simple. None of the scenarios in the video make sense, and calling a fetus a person doesn’t make sense, either. But a person’s worth is not measured by any of the idiotic things this video lamely tried to joke about. Quadriplegics can’t play tennis. Are they not people? A two-year-old out for a lunch date with Mommy can’t pay for his share of the bill. Does the two-year-old not count, either? The idea that personhood has anything whatsoever to do with the activities a person can take part in is ludicrous, and Choice USA knows it. They also know that most pregnant women instinctively know that what is growing inside of them is a person, and not a clump of cells or a bit of tissue or a fetus. It’s a baby.
A baby can’t play tennis or go to a movie or pay for a bill, but we don’t allow babies to be murdered after they’re born, do we? Of course, what’s really curious is how an actual radical pro-abortion feminist would feel if they were to actually carry a child. What about an abortion extremist like, say, Feministing founder and feminazi extraordinaire Jessica Valenti?
Radical femisogynist Jessica Valenti recently gave birth to a little girl. And while I doubt this subject is one she’ll ever broach, I have to say, I would love to know her thoughts. See, I’m pregnant right now. I’ve heard my baby’s heartbeat. I’ve seen the heart beating on an ultrasound. I’ve seen my baby kick its little legs and suck its thumb. I felt my baby move for the first time just a few days ago. I know exactly what I’m carrying, and yes, it’s a person. I could see the eyes and the smile, I could make out a profile with a forehead, nose, and lips. I could see the little fingers and toes. It isn’t some kind of meaningless bunch of tissue inside of me, it’s a person. A little person, yes, but a person.
When Valenti heard her baby’s heart beating, did she think it was just an abortable clump of cells? When she saw her daughter moving in her uterus, was it a fetus or a baby? When she felt her baby kicking, did she have any doubt about what she was carrying? If she had miscarried (and thank goodness she didn’t), would she have thought she lost some fetal tissue or would she have thought she lost her baby? A pregnant woman knows the truth. It’s why so many women feel they need to lie to themselves or avoid an ultrasound before an abortion. If they were to admit the truth to themselves, they wouldn’t be able to live with themselves.
These are questions she’ll probably never answer. (She blogged about her pregnancy only once.) To answer truthfully would be to undermine what she’s spent years fighting for. After all, when you see the little baby squirming and moving on that ultrasound screen, there’s no doubt about what it is. But to admit that a pregnant woman is carrying a baby, and not a meaningless clump of cells, would be to open Pandora’s Box for pro-abortion radicals like Valenti. If it’s a baby, then to abort it is murder. Quite a sticky situation for a femisogynist to get herself into, isn’t it?
An unborn baby may not be able to play tennis, but it has a beating heart and a life growing inside its mother’s uterus. That truth is indisputable, no matter how many bad jokey videos pro-abortion radicals make trying to convince you otherwise.
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Follow Cassy on Twitter and read more of her work at CassyFiano.com and Hard Corps Wife.









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Not taking sides, here, but this seems a little over the top.
Count to 10 on October 6, 2010 at 2:06 PM
Virginia Ironside would have no problem smothering them with a pillow.
rbj on October 6, 2010 at 2:18 PM
A pregnant woman eats for two people.
aengus on October 6, 2010 at 2:32 PM
What is especially silly in all these examples is that not only would an unborn child not “count” in these situations, usually an infant or toddler wouldn’t, either.
As for Jessica Valenti’s attitude toward her baby while pregnant, we can’t know, but I suspect the answer would be very cynical: a wanted baby is just that, a baby; and an unwanted baby is mere tissue, “products of conception.”
jwolf on October 6, 2010 at 3:34 PM
If they aren’t a person before they are born, what exactly makes them a person after they are born?
Using the ‘logic’ of this ad, we could just go ahead right now and cut out every part of ‘health care having to do with ‘pre-natal’, right?
Since the baby can’t play tennis and therefore isn’t a person, why does this non-person need the mother to take pre-natal vitamins? Why can’t the mother smoke or drink alcohol? Why must the mother eat right, exercise? Why bother with any fetal ultra-sound? Why bother about testing amniotic fluid checking the non-person for any potential disease? Why is it necessary to alert a radiologist prior to an x-ray if the non-person really is a non-viable cell mass? Why can’t woman take certain medications during pregnancy which are just fine for her before or after pregnancy?
catmman on October 6, 2010 at 3:38 PM
Kinda fits the term pro-abortion. I’d assume she’s talking about the same people who complained that Palin didn’t abort Trig and thus inspired other women to give birth to their Downs babies.
Esthier on October 6, 2010 at 3:43 PM
Yeah, you don’t pay extra to take an infant on the plane either. Does that mean that he’s not a person? I guess so in liberal land.
Also, congratulations on your pregnancy!
Vera on October 6, 2010 at 3:46 PM
Congratulations on the pregnancy, Cassy!
Sekhmet on October 6, 2010 at 5:24 PM
Thanks guys! It’s very exciting.
Cassy Fiano on October 6, 2010 at 5:28 PM
I remember a feminazi telling me that “unless it can survive outside the womb, it isn’t a baby yet”. Groan. I told her she couldn’t survive in a fight with Mohammed Ali in a ring, outside the womb. She doth protest loudly.
I suggested that she retroactively abort herself. Show her complete dedication to the cause. More protesting.
I guess I’m a butthead.
Congrats!!!!!!!!! You’re gonna learn more about yourself than you ever thought you’d know.
Robert17 on October 6, 2010 at 7:07 PM
Oh my goodness!!! CONGRATULATIONS!
Bee on October 6, 2010 at 8:34 PM
Yes, congratulations, Cassy.
What’s scary is that, if you push someone who is pro-abortion on the whole ‘personhood’ issue, most would prefer to agree to infanticide than disagree with abortion.
Cassy, have you ever read Peter Kreeft? I find him very useful when discussing the ethics of abortion.
Scott H on October 6, 2010 at 10:31 PM
Wonderful post, Cassy. And…
…congratulations!!
I highly recommend Kreeft too.
inviolet on October 6, 2010 at 10:37 PM
Is that Michelle Obama, the most powerful woman in the world in that video? I know she’s a tennis player…
Buy Danish on October 7, 2010 at 9:36 AM
“After all, the pro-abortion line has never truly been about choice. There’s only one acceptable choice, and that choice is abortion.”
———————–
OMG 100% OF PRO-CHOICERS GET ABORTIONS
ONE HUNDRED PER CENT
IT’S TRUE
EVEN THE PRO-CHOICERS WHO WANT TO GET PREGNANT
THEY GET PREGNANT
AND THEN THEY GET AN ABORTION
BECAUSE THAT’S THE ONLY ACCEPTABLE CHOICE
Dave Rywall on October 7, 2010 at 10:36 AM
Oh wow, Crywall’s using all caps now. Well that really gets your point across. /sarc
rbj on October 7, 2010 at 11:44 AM
I’ve always found this kind of hypocrisy frustrating. Many pro-choicers I’ve known will yell till the cows come home that it’s not a baby, it’s a fetus, and a fetus doesn’t have rights– but the second one of them has a miscarriage they grieve knowing that they lost a child.
The unborn: only a baby if it’s YOUR baby.
RachDubya on October 7, 2010 at 1:06 PM
You tell ‘em, rblowjob!
Dark-Star on October 7, 2010 at 1:39 PM
More critical thinking and logical arguments from the Left.
rbj on October 7, 2010 at 2:10 PM
Oh, look, trolls trying to change the subject by “shouting” and calling people names. What a shocka.
Very classy, and I’m sure everyone is swayed by your logic and class.
Merovign on October 7, 2010 at 2:10 PM
Just matching the brilliant contributions you’ve made so far. Go look at Dr.Zeros posts if you need some inspiration.
As to the video, it’s a good laugh, but there’s plenty of illogic and unanswered questions to go around for both sides. Obviously, playing tennis or paying for dinner is a very poor metric for determining personhood. Then again if the fetus IS a person, can businesses legitimately charge pregnant women accordingly? (Though I doubt they’d really try such a thing, as the childed would rise in screaming fury)
Dark-Star on October 7, 2010 at 2:23 PM