Dear Sarah Palin: Refudiate the Mama Grizzly, For She is Pro-Choice
July 21, 2010 by Liliana Loofbourow · 9 Comments
Keep your paws off my uterus and no one gets hurt.
I was thinking about the “mama grizzly” model of womanhood and decided to do a little research, since this, according to Ms. Palin, is the way of America’s future. It turns out the Mama Grizzly’s excellence as a mother—the reason Sarah Palin chose her as her symbol—is a direct function of her ability to become a mother when circumstances are precisely right and not before. In a nutshell, Mama Grizzlies abort.
What I found: Not only do female grizzlies like to play the field—with multiple partners and repeated encounters that last up to an hour—they also terminate the pregnancy if the timing is poor. A female grizzly won’t carry a fetus to term unless she is in “peak condition” and has the wherewithal to support her offspring. As is the case with other bears, “if the mother has not accumulated enough fat to sustain herself as well as developing cubs,” the fertilized embryo will be reabsorbed into the not-going-to-be-a-mother-yet’s body.
From Mountainnature:
After mating, the female may be pregnant, but that does not mean she will give birth to cubs. There is an old joke that you can’t be half pregnant, but bears have proven this statement to be false. Bears, weasels and some seals have developed a process called delayed implantation. The fertilized egg develops into a small embryo called a blastocyst. This is where the interesting stuff begins. After this brief period of development, the fertilized egg suddenly stops growing and simply floats freely in the uterus for several months.
If a sow is in peak condition when she heads into her winter den, the embryo implants in the uterus and begin to develop. She’ll wake up during January or February to give birth. …If the sow is not in peak condition at the onset of hibernation, her body will reabsorb the embryo and not give birth that year. This gives bears more control over their reproductive rate than just about any other animal.
Humans included.
Cross-posted from Millicent and Carla Fran.
Photo courtesy of Flickr user chascar under Creative Commons 2.0.
That’s so cool! I can just imagine, if human’s had this ability, the hundreds of laws by republicans trying to ban a woman from reabsorbing her embryo.
In case you didn't notice, the Democrats are the ones that over-regulate. But I guess you can't explain that to another liberal ostrich.
Bears just got more awesome, if possible.
Agreed.
Also, female bears are known to eat their cubs if there is no food. Somehow, I don’t think she knows that either.
Wow! I’ve never heard of this before. Take THAT you pro-life Palin-followers!