Another Texas Politician Jumps on the Crazy Train

Rep. Mike Burgess (R_TX) Says 15-Week Male Fetuses Pleasure Themselves.

ABC News’ Brooke Kettler reports:

At what age do young boys begin sexual self-exploration? As early as 15 weeks in utero, according to Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Texas.

“Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful,” said Burgess, a former obstetrician-gynecologist. “They stroke their face. If they’re a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?”

The tea party congressman, 62, made the awkward argument during a House Rules Committee hearing today about H.R. bill 1797, which would ban abortions 20 weeks after fertilization.

Burgess, who says that fetal movements can point to pleasurable sexual sensation, argues that abortion should be limited to the first 15 weeks, rather than the proposed 20.

Sarah + Fox News = The Closing of the American Mind

Kitsch: the translation of the stupidity of received ideas into the language of beauty and feeling [that] moves us to tears of compassion for ourselves, for the banality of what we think and feel.

Milan Kundera

I’m tired of ignorance held up as inspiration, where vicious anti-intellectualism is considered a positive trait, and where uninformed opinion is displayed as fact.
Phil Plait, The Mainstreaming of Crazy