Impossibilities & Contradictions

According to the Washington Post, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts' wife Jane is a self-described anti-choice feminist. As well say that one is a Christian Atheist, a Pacifist Warrior, or a Liberal Republican. It's a logical impossibility.

Oh sure, she can claim that she holds these two fundamentally incommensurable positions at the same time. And I can claim to be the Emperor of the Moon.

At minimum poor Janice is just deeply confused. Perhaps she isn't aware that the ability to make choices about reproductive decisions is the cornerstone of female liberation; without them women would be too busy getting pregnant to finish college or have a career. Or maybe she doesn't realize that the anti-choice position betrays an essential misogyny - that women are incapable of making a reasoned decision about their own future without some Man telling her how to do it. It's possible that she hasn't realized that without the ability to choose not to have a child, a woman is nothing more than a baby-making machine deprived of real autonomy. Perhaps Janice thinks that sex is naughty and that people shouldn't do it unless it's for the purpose of procreation, which amounts to imposing her highly idiosyncratic and unnatural theology on everyone else.

Or maybe she's just stupid.