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News & ArtsFriday, February 19, 2010
Health Florida Bill Would Raise the Cost of Abortions to Life in Prison for Doctors
Posted by Cienna Madrid on Fri, Feb 19, 2010 at 1:25 PM
A new bill introduced in the Florida legislature that would make most abortions illegal with a penalty of up to life in prison for doctors who performed them—including abortions resulting from pregnancies involving rape or incest—has been filed for the 2010 legislative session.
Both anti-abortion advocates and abortion rights supporters agree the 53-page proposal is an attempt to directly challenge the 40-year-old Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortions in the United States in 1973.
Along with not protecting victims of rape and incest, the bill would make induced abortions illegal and punishable by up to life in prison, allow doctors and hospitals to refuse to provide abortion services, and make women jump through two physician sign-offs to ensure that an abortion is medically necessary to save the life of the mother.
Meanwhile, we're in day three of a nationwide pro-life vigil called 40 Days for Life, which sends church groups to fast and pray in front of various women's health care providers, including Planned Parenthood locations in Tacoma, Everett, Olympia, and Bremerton.
John Leslie, a volunteer with the 40 Days campaign in Tacoma, says he objects to Planned Parenthood's abortion factory and promotion of promiscuity, and prays daily for their "change of heart". He says his group has roughly 12 people praying in front of Planned Parenthood each day from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. When asked why he objects to sexual education and protection for women, Leslie said:
"[Planned Parenthood] like to promote this nice term called 'scientifically and medically accurate information' but who knows what that means... Really their goal isn't to reduce the amount of sex [kids are] having, they want to promote sex in our schools and then offer out abortions... It's all good business for them, like having the fox in the hen house."
He admits that he's never been inside a Planned Parenthood and doesn't know exactly what they do during private consultations. He also informed me that abortion leads to a 40 percent increase in breast cancer risk among women (a statistic commonly heard at religiously-run limited service pregnancy centers).
"That's just not true," says Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Kristen Glundberg-Prosser, citing this page by the American Cancer Society. As for the effect fasting and praying is having on Planned Parenthood clinics in Washington, "We've seen no decline in our number of patients. We have trained escorts ready and available to keep our patients safe, but really, these groups aren't having an effect on our patient load."
4
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life.
What part of "life" do they not understand?
What part of "life" do they not understand?
5
@1, to their teeny-tiny little underutilized brains, killing a week-old, undifferentiated clump of cells is the same thing as "killing a baby." Yes, I know that makes no sense, but they seem to have a hard time with it.
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This is definitely disheartening... but... will be interesting to see what happens to the bill. It could just be one crazy Rep introducing a bill that goes nowhere (which is not that uncommon). It hasn't even gone to Committee yet. I'll try not to get too worked up about it until something actually happens.
7
"they want to promote sex in our schools and then offer out abortions"
It always astounds me that these people are willing to make up any bit of information --no matter how illogical or contrary to, you know, actual reality-- just to support their everlovin' "cause".
You want fewer abortions and less teen sex? Then provide sex education and contraception! It's really not hard.
But no, their greater point is to encourage shame and guilt. Specifically shame and guilt of natural things like your own body, and sex.
Why? Because if you feel negatively about something so fundamental, then you can be lead (by them) to the 'solution', or 'salvation'.
Classic brainwashing technique.
It's about control. And they want it.
It always astounds me that these people are willing to make up any bit of information --no matter how illogical or contrary to, you know, actual reality-- just to support their everlovin' "cause".
You want fewer abortions and less teen sex? Then provide sex education and contraception! It's really not hard.
But no, their greater point is to encourage shame and guilt. Specifically shame and guilt of natural things like your own body, and sex.
Why? Because if you feel negatively about something so fundamental, then you can be lead (by them) to the 'solution', or 'salvation'.
Classic brainwashing technique.
It's about control. And they want it.
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7
sort of like the Liberals want to control how health care is delivered and how much carbon we use?
like that?
sort of like the Liberals want to control how health care is delivered and how much carbon we use?
like that?
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@4 yeah, it's not for women, is it.
Or better, let's condemn someone to a fucked up and miserable life of poverty because they were born to a teenager who had to drop out of school and the babydaddy took off to another state to avoid helping...
If Xtian groups are so gung-ho on making sure every child is born, then where in the Lord's name are all the mother-and-child support centers making sure every child has education and, you know, an actual life?
Or better, let's condemn someone to a fucked up and miserable life of poverty because they were born to a teenager who had to drop out of school and the babydaddy took off to another state to avoid helping...
If Xtian groups are so gung-ho on making sure every child is born, then where in the Lord's name are all the mother-and-child support centers making sure every child has education and, you know, an actual life?
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@9 get your facts straight buddy. And-- digression! --stop changing the subject. If you can't argue on topic, stfu.
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@12 Where are all the Xtian-run mother-and-child support centers? Where is the post-natal child care? WHERE? Put your money where your mouth is. If you even know what that idiom means.
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@10: But then they'd have to pay taxes to support the schools and free lunch programs, and those teen moms should be working harder to home school the kids and work full-time to provide the kids a lunch themselves! IT'S IN THE BIBLE!
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@14 Au contraire, it's the Xtians that want control. They want to stop me and my friends from joining in partnership. They want to stop me from getting cheap and effective healthcare. They want to tell me how to live and what to do. It's the Xtian Right who wants the control. Don't tell me what to do. It's a very easy rule to follow.
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Liberals claim the right to kill all children that Christians don't provide support centers for?
That's nice....
Liberals claim the right to kill all children that Christians don't provide support centers for?
That's nice....
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18
Partner away.
Just don't expect the rest of us to subsidize it.
Also please excuse us if we decline to pay for your "cheap" health care. What's stopping you from going out and buying all the "cheap and effective" healthcare you want? Oh yeah, the taxpayer subsidizing that, too.
Partner away.
Just don't expect the rest of us to subsidize it.
Also please excuse us if we decline to pay for your "cheap" health care. What's stopping you from going out and buying all the "cheap and effective" healthcare you want? Oh yeah, the taxpayer subsidizing that, too.
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I wonder which side loveschild will choose in this debate.
Are we seriously this screwed up, that a bill like this gets introduced and has significant support? Astonishing.
Are we seriously this screwed up, that a bill like this gets introduced and has significant support? Astonishing.
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Florida. Blech! Remember Teri Schiavo. They never tire of sticking their self righteous noses in other people's business.
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Abortions should be more widespread. Pregnancy should not be the directive of every dimwitted uterus to slither around a pew, but many folks treat it as such. Having a quiverful will not enrich the nation, it will basically take your gullible genes and try to pull them out as far as they can go until you're basically plotting out a future where grandkids knock up grandkids and the gene pool is about as shallow as the rain-soaked bed of a Ford F-150.
Eugenics and Dominionism are two branches of the same stupid tree.
Eugenics and Dominionism are two branches of the same stupid tree.
25
Hey, thanks for the alarm-pulling, Ms. Madrid, but would you mind including in your report some sort of background to this legislation?
There were _two_ bills introduced in the WA legislature that would have made marijuana legal. Neither of them went anywhere, much to the surprise of no one. Is this the kind of bill that is introduced w/ no hope of ever getting passed, but done as a political ploy to garner support of folks like our resident troll, mr whiny pussy et al, or does this bill have any chance of getting on to the main floor, let alone out of committee?
See, these sorts of facts would be important to people who think and reason as a matter of habit, as opposed to those who are looking for their next Righteous Indignation high. (Sadly, the latter are everywhere on the political spectrum.)
There were _two_ bills introduced in the WA legislature that would have made marijuana legal. Neither of them went anywhere, much to the surprise of no one. Is this the kind of bill that is introduced w/ no hope of ever getting passed, but done as a political ploy to garner support of folks like our resident troll, mr whiny pussy et al, or does this bill have any chance of getting on to the main floor, let alone out of committee?
See, these sorts of facts would be important to people who think and reason as a matter of habit, as opposed to those who are looking for their next Righteous Indignation high. (Sadly, the latter are everywhere on the political spectrum.)
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@18 & 20 --- The inability to carry on a coherent, thoughtful, reasoned argument never stopped an internet troll from flapping his gums.
(drops mic...) Yeah, that's right!
(drops mic...) Yeah, that's right!
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3- hahaha! so funny!
i just never hear this part debated. if it's legality is being challenged then i would be interested in reading some articles about the myths and beliefs behind the anti-abortion crusaders.
i just never hear this part debated. if it's legality is being challenged then i would be interested in reading some articles about the myths and beliefs behind the anti-abortion crusaders.
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Has the anti-abortion crowd always used the "PP promotes abortions because it's better for their bottom line" argument? I never heard that one growing up (I was raised very conservative Christian), but I've been hearing it a lot lately.
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LOL! I just love how the right-wing trolls equate "freedom to have control over ones own body" with "YOU WANT TO CONTROL MY BODY!" while at the same time being completely unable to comprehend the innate contradiction in their ideology.
Bottom line, morans: If you don't approve of abortions - then don't fucking have one! Don't want to contribute financially for someone else's abortion? That's fine with me too, only so long as I get to not contribute for all the stupid-assed crazy shit my tax dollars go to subsidize on YOUR behalf, like your faith-based social services agencies, the tax-exempt status for your churches, the voucher programs for your private religious schools, etc., etc. - I mean, fair IS fair, after all, right?
Bottom line, morans: If you don't approve of abortions - then don't fucking have one! Don't want to contribute financially for someone else's abortion? That's fine with me too, only so long as I get to not contribute for all the stupid-assed crazy shit my tax dollars go to subsidize on YOUR behalf, like your faith-based social services agencies, the tax-exempt status for your churches, the voucher programs for your private religious schools, etc., etc. - I mean, fair IS fair, after all, right?
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Everyone should have control over their own body.
And exercise it.
Don't want to get pregnant?
Don't.
Everyone should have control over their own body.
And exercise it.
Don't want to get pregnant?
Don't.
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treacle,
I am sure you know that, but just to provide some extra reassurance- not all Xtians are bigoted, stupid, sanctimonious, pious assholes. Some of us firmly stand ,and are very vocal fighters for gay rights.
We want to make sure you can marry your partners, adopt kids if you wish so and not being denied rights.
I am sure you know that, but just to provide some extra reassurance- not all Xtians are bigoted, stupid, sanctimonious, pious assholes. Some of us firmly stand ,and are very vocal fighters for gay rights.
We want to make sure you can marry your partners, adopt kids if you wish so and not being denied rights.
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@33 True, it is the Christian RIGHT who is doing this. The Christian left is too busy keeping their beliefs to themselves, trying to live good lives and be good people. You won't see moderate or liberal Christians spending all their time trying to control women, oppress gays and lesbians, and push a moral code that they can't even live up to on the rest of us.
Thanks for standing up and saying something. I wish more people like you would.
Thanks for standing up and saying something. I wish more people like you would.
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20
where was your righteous indignation when bush borrowed mountains of money from china to pay for health care for all iraqis after we invaded?
where was your righteous indignation when bush borrowed mountains of money from china to pay for health care for all iraqis after we invaded?
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I am strongly pro-choice. I think anti-abortion folks are welcome to teach their religious beliefs to each other but should leave legislation alone. The above bill is disgusting.
However-- at least the folks who don't believe in exceptions for incest or rape are ideologically consistent. Whenever I hear someone say "I think abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape or incest" I know they don't actually think of a fetus as a child. (Either that or they're cool with killing children of rape.) People who are against abortion unless the woman didn't choose to have sex are just into forcing the responsibility of a future child onto her as punishment. They're about slut-shaming, not saving a life.
This needs to be pointed out to them.
However-- at least the folks who don't believe in exceptions for incest or rape are ideologically consistent. Whenever I hear someone say "I think abortion should be illegal except in cases of rape or incest" I know they don't actually think of a fetus as a child. (Either that or they're cool with killing children of rape.) People who are against abortion unless the woman didn't choose to have sex are just into forcing the responsibility of a future child onto her as punishment. They're about slut-shaming, not saving a life.
This needs to be pointed out to them.
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@33 Alinka. Yes, I am aware there is a full-spectrum of Christians. And I stand with those who can think and reason and actually do good and progressive things. Thanks!
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@32 Don't tell me what to do! Stop trying to control my actions! Also: Sex education and contraception PREVENT pregnancy. Why don't you hand out condoms if you're all so concerned about controlling other people?
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A blob of human tissue is not a human being, nor does it deserve the rights of one. If you think otherwise, I suggest you start picketing fertility clinics. They flush more of your precious "fertilized eggs" in a day than doctors remove in a year.
"Partial Birth Abortion" is a political term. It does not appear in any legitimate medical textbook. The correct medical term is "Intact Dilation and Extraction". Late term abortions such as this are ALWAYS done for medical reasons, NEVER by casual whim or choice. The woman WANTED to have a baby, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong in pregnancy. Fetal encephalitis (that would be "head filling with fluid and damaging the brain") is one of them.
The enlightened side of America knows that an abortion is not the same as infanticide. And we shall never push to make infanticide legal.
The ignorant and superstitious side of America on the other hand, if they had their way regarding abortion, would next go after the birth control pill, then condoms, and then everyone else's sexual privacy. They would also scream "WHORE!!" at the top of their lungs as their sisters and daughters bled to death in back alleys, for the so called 'crime' of wanting a small cluster of foreign cells removed.
"Every sperm is say-cred..."
"Partial Birth Abortion" is a political term. It does not appear in any legitimate medical textbook. The correct medical term is "Intact Dilation and Extraction". Late term abortions such as this are ALWAYS done for medical reasons, NEVER by casual whim or choice. The woman WANTED to have a baby, but there are a lot of things that can go wrong in pregnancy. Fetal encephalitis (that would be "head filling with fluid and damaging the brain") is one of them.
The enlightened side of America knows that an abortion is not the same as infanticide. And we shall never push to make infanticide legal.
The ignorant and superstitious side of America on the other hand, if they had their way regarding abortion, would next go after the birth control pill, then condoms, and then everyone else's sexual privacy. They would also scream "WHORE!!" at the top of their lungs as their sisters and daughters bled to death in back alleys, for the so called 'crime' of wanting a small cluster of foreign cells removed.
"Every sperm is say-cred..."
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That's great @32: now, are you going to support allowing women to have access to things that will keep them from getting pregnant, like, condoms, IUD's, The Pill, The Patch, The Insert, or Plan B (which, BTW is NOT an abortiifacient, despite what you ignorant fucks keep saying)? Or are they supposed to just do it the old-fashioned way, by counting the days between their menstrual cycles, because, you know, science hasn't come up with a better, more fool-proof method in the last 50 years or so, right?
If that's the case, then I suppose you also wouldn't mind giving up every bit of technology that makes it possible for you to live a longer, more comfortable, relatively pestilence-free existence, since, if scientific advancements in the field of reproductive control are somehow evil in your mind, it only follows that any scientific advancement that allows you to have any other form of control over your own body must be evil as well, right? I mean, you want women to do things the "natural way", so you must also be willing to walk that same path yourself, no?
Yep, thought so.
If that's the case, then I suppose you also wouldn't mind giving up every bit of technology that makes it possible for you to live a longer, more comfortable, relatively pestilence-free existence, since, if scientific advancements in the field of reproductive control are somehow evil in your mind, it only follows that any scientific advancement that allows you to have any other form of control over your own body must be evil as well, right? I mean, you want women to do things the "natural way", so you must also be willing to walk that same path yourself, no?
Yep, thought so.
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Every year, someone in some state introduces some asinine bill like this, in the hopes that it will get passed and challenged up the ladder back to the SCOTUS, where they THINK there are suddenly enough votes to overturn the 1973 decision.
But too many people in the country support a woman's right to choose. So they can blather on all they want, but at the end of the day, the status quo will remain, to be grudgingly chipped away at piece by piece, like they've been doing for the past 20 years.
But too many people in the country support a woman's right to choose. So they can blather on all they want, but at the end of the day, the status quo will remain, to be grudgingly chipped away at piece by piece, like they've been doing for the past 20 years.
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@39:
Well, keep in mind, these same people not only DO believe a microscopic blob of undifferentiated cells IS a human being, but they also believe a legal incorporation of individuals pooling their capital in order to maximize profit is also a human being.
Frankly, I'm surprised they don't think robots are human beings, since that would pretty much be consistent with what they believe already.
Well, keep in mind, these same people not only DO believe a microscopic blob of undifferentiated cells IS a human being, but they also believe a legal incorporation of individuals pooling their capital in order to maximize profit is also a human being.
Frankly, I'm surprised they don't think robots are human beings, since that would pretty much be consistent with what they believe already.
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I always love the abortion/breast cancer argument. Also the "you'll ruin your chances of getting pregnant later" argument. And my own favorite, the "abortion causes mental illness" argument.
Then there's the "pill causes breast cancer" bit, and the "IUDs cause abortions every month" routine.
(All poppycock, btw. These yahoos want freedom, as long as their women don't act up none.)
Then there's the "pill causes breast cancer" bit, and the "IUDs cause abortions every month" routine.
(All poppycock, btw. These yahoos want freedom, as long as their women don't act up none.)
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I hope the fasting angle catches on. Fast away, right-to-lifers. Fast and fast and fast. If you can go a few more days without food, God is certain to be impressed and intervene to make abortion illegal on your behalf.
Plus, you'll be ever so svelte when you arrive in heaven!
Plus, you'll be ever so svelte when you arrive in heaven!
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Nothing does that better than an illegal abortion.
Also the "you'll ruin your chances of getting pregnant later" argument.
Nothing does that better than an illegal abortion.
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High five, Alinka @ 33.
And, it has been my experience that the moderate and progressive brethren are becoming more vocal. The ire is directed at their conservative brothers and sisters for their sub-Christian behavior. Well, at least that is what I'm starting to here at my home church.
And, it has been my experience that the moderate and progressive brethren are becoming more vocal. The ire is directed at their conservative brothers and sisters for their sub-Christian behavior. Well, at least that is what I'm starting to here at my home church.
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43
yeah
those are awesome
how about the 'abortion kills a living being whose only crime was being created by a couple of selfish stupid irresponsible losers' argument?
yeah
those are awesome
how about the 'abortion kills a living being whose only crime was being created by a couple of selfish stupid irresponsible losers' argument?
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The funny thing is that for all the whining of the anti-abortion people, they have utterly failed to change much of anything or prevent very many abortions. Pro-choice people have certainly prevented more abortions by promoting sex education and birth control - someone who never gets pregnant in the first place doesn't need to have an abortion.
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@47:
Then clearly, you have no objection if selfless, intelligent, responsible winners decide to use contraceptives in order to prevent said pregnancy, no?
Then clearly, you have no objection if selfless, intelligent, responsible winners decide to use contraceptives in order to prevent said pregnancy, no?
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The fact that Planned Parenthood is a nonprofit destroys his whole argument, but logic clearly isn't this guy's strong suit.
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don't get your hopes up, troll. abortion is the right's biggest cash cow/wedge issue. if you guys got rid of it, what else would corporatists use to keep people from voting against their own interests? oh yeah... gays. maybe after abortion is illegal more people will be willing to vocally call for exterminating the gays? dare to dream.
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Calling the right "anti-abortionists" plays to a false premise. The right wants to make abortions illegal again but, back when abortions WERE illegal, there were still abortions. Therefore making abortions illegal does not remove abortions. Illegality only increased the likelihood that the unwilling mother would suffer medical consequences from an unsanitary back-alley abortion.
No one thinks that abortions are a good thing. The left has been prominent in its efforts to reduce death and abortion through the encouragement of sex education and birth control - both proven methods of reducing unwanted pregnancies - and reduction of unwanted pregnancies means reducing abortions. Therefore the true anti-abortionists are, ironically, on the left.
No one thinks that abortions are a good thing. The left has been prominent in its efforts to reduce death and abortion through the encouragement of sex education and birth control - both proven methods of reducing unwanted pregnancies - and reduction of unwanted pregnancies means reducing abortions. Therefore the true anti-abortionists are, ironically, on the left.
53
I think abortion should be free on demand, paid for by the government.
We talk a good talk about "the children" in this country, but half the people who have children, have them for the wrong reasons, or because they forgot (or were too dumb) to use birth control.
Besides, while lots of people love babies, a lot of those same people find they hate kids. And those kids end up being a drain on society.
So abort early and often. We'll be better for it.
We talk a good talk about "the children" in this country, but half the people who have children, have them for the wrong reasons, or because they forgot (or were too dumb) to use birth control.
Besides, while lots of people love babies, a lot of those same people find they hate kids. And those kids end up being a drain on society.
So abort early and often. We'll be better for it.
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I want to force every one of these xtian shitstains to carry a 15 pound tumor in their belly, with some kind of chance that it will kill them inn 9 months. Or just figure out a way to to force them to carry the sweet little darlings to term and raise them.
Bottom line is no matter what you call it, the rights of the carrier / mother trump whatever rights the sweet lift gift from jebus might have while it's inside her. Until the first independent breath. Incidentally - THAT is the biblical standard.
I'm pro abortion - in a free country choice is a given.
Bottom line is no matter what you call it, the rights of the carrier / mother trump whatever rights the sweet lift gift from jebus might have while it's inside her. Until the first independent breath. Incidentally - THAT is the biblical standard.
I'm pro abortion - in a free country choice is a given.
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47,
I'm afraid I have to take you head-on on this one. A fertilized egg, or a cluster of cells, is not a "being" worth rights or protection. You are welcome to make the argument, but until you can back it up with proof, the argument is horseshit.
It is alive, certainly. But life by itself is not what makes us "beings" special.
It is human, yes, in the same way that a liver sample is 'human'.
It is not yet *a* human, as in a cognitive individual. Unique DNA is just a set of chemical instructions.
I flush sperm away by the millions every day. They are certainly 'living' and 'human'. Shall I be tried for genocide?
A woman who is not pregnant is losing one unfertilized egg every month. Shall we decry her as a serial killer?
In both cases the answer is no. In both cases, just biological waste that no one cares about any more than blowing their nose. Yet, in your mind, the MOMENT they combine, it's a full-fledged person, deserving far, far more than it's host.
You are wrong.
Mixing sperm and egg together does nothing more than create a new arrangement of DNA. A cell, and then tissue. It takes a good few months of being a parasite before it can even twitch a finger. At those early cell stages, it is not a baby, not a person, and it certainly does not have a 'right to life' that supersedes it's host's right to "liberty and the persuit of happiness".
I'm afraid I have to take you head-on on this one. A fertilized egg, or a cluster of cells, is not a "being" worth rights or protection. You are welcome to make the argument, but until you can back it up with proof, the argument is horseshit.
It is alive, certainly. But life by itself is not what makes us "beings" special.
It is human, yes, in the same way that a liver sample is 'human'.
It is not yet *a* human, as in a cognitive individual. Unique DNA is just a set of chemical instructions.
I flush sperm away by the millions every day. They are certainly 'living' and 'human'. Shall I be tried for genocide?
A woman who is not pregnant is losing one unfertilized egg every month. Shall we decry her as a serial killer?
In both cases the answer is no. In both cases, just biological waste that no one cares about any more than blowing their nose. Yet, in your mind, the MOMENT they combine, it's a full-fledged person, deserving far, far more than it's host.
You are wrong.
Mixing sperm and egg together does nothing more than create a new arrangement of DNA. A cell, and then tissue. It takes a good few months of being a parasite before it can even twitch a finger. At those early cell stages, it is not a baby, not a person, and it certainly does not have a 'right to life' that supersedes it's host's right to "liberty and the persuit of happiness".
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Woodbun @ 55, thank you for your rationality.
Your post reminded me of the satirical political group, Ladies Against Women, who used to rant on and on about the "millions of innocent pre-conceived slaughtered every day by the male sin of self-abuse."
Your post reminded me of the satirical political group, Ladies Against Women, who used to rant on and on about the "millions of innocent pre-conceived slaughtered every day by the male sin of self-abuse."
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"No one thinks that abortions are a good thing."
Not a 'good' thing must mean a bad thing.
Right?
Yet the Left fights fiercely to keep this Bad Thing legal.
"Therefore the true anti-abortionists are, ironically, on the left."?!
Perhaps "ironically" doesn't mean what you think-
it doesn't mean Bullshit...
"The left has been prominent in its efforts to reduce death and abortion through the encouragement of sex education and birth control - both proven methods of reducing unwanted pregnancies -"
Are you aware that abstinence is a much more effective method to reduce death and abortion and unwanted pregnancies?
Can we expect to see the Left promoting abstinence?
No?
"Therefore the true anti-abortionists are, ironically, on the left."
Damn.
That IS ironic....
"No one thinks that abortions are a good thing."
Not a 'good' thing must mean a bad thing.
Right?
Yet the Left fights fiercely to keep this Bad Thing legal.
"Therefore the true anti-abortionists are, ironically, on the left."?!
Perhaps "ironically" doesn't mean what you think-
it doesn't mean Bullshit...
"The left has been prominent in its efforts to reduce death and abortion through the encouragement of sex education and birth control - both proven methods of reducing unwanted pregnancies -"
Are you aware that abstinence is a much more effective method to reduce death and abortion and unwanted pregnancies?
Can we expect to see the Left promoting abstinence?
No?
"Therefore the true anti-abortionists are, ironically, on the left."
Damn.
That IS ironic....
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55
We agree on much.
Conception creates a new unique human life.
Since we agree 'proof' seems unnecessary.
We disagree on what protections to afford these helpless innocent new members of the human family.
You find them undeserving of rights or protection and deny them a 'right to life'.
Hubert H. Humphrey said that the moral test of a people is how they treat those who are in the dawn of life, the not-yet-born; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
I believe the helplessness and innocence of these beings in the dawn of life demands that we protect them from those who would kill them.
Killing the yet-to-be-born seems an unworthy endeavor to be labeled 'the pursuit of happiness'...
We agree on much.
Conception creates a new unique human life.
Since we agree 'proof' seems unnecessary.
We disagree on what protections to afford these helpless innocent new members of the human family.
You find them undeserving of rights or protection and deny them a 'right to life'.
Hubert H. Humphrey said that the moral test of a people is how they treat those who are in the dawn of life, the not-yet-born; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.
I believe the helplessness and innocence of these beings in the dawn of life demands that we protect them from those who would kill them.
Killing the yet-to-be-born seems an unworthy endeavor to be labeled 'the pursuit of happiness'...
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57, 58
"We agree on much. Conception creates a new unique human life." You are using manipulative wording. I never agreed with your position.
It is not "a life" as in an individual person with a mind. It is "life" as in a squishy substance that can be found growing under the bathroom sink. Furthermore, life is not 'created' at conception, as the sperm and egg are already considered living.
To put it in very simple, basic terms, you have to prove that it has what you simple-minded folks call a "soul". Prove it is a person, in the sense that it has a mind and an imagination. Then, I will protect it.
But, until you prove that, I'm afraid I see it as the same as a swollen appendix. Not a person.
Also, I must point out that the elderly and crippled are not inside someone's body, so your argument there is invalid.
"We agree on much. Conception creates a new unique human life." You are using manipulative wording. I never agreed with your position.
It is not "a life" as in an individual person with a mind. It is "life" as in a squishy substance that can be found growing under the bathroom sink. Furthermore, life is not 'created' at conception, as the sperm and egg are already considered living.
To put it in very simple, basic terms, you have to prove that it has what you simple-minded folks call a "soul". Prove it is a person, in the sense that it has a mind and an imagination. Then, I will protect it.
But, until you prove that, I'm afraid I see it as the same as a swollen appendix. Not a person.
Also, I must point out that the elderly and crippled are not inside someone's body, so your argument there is invalid.
60
@58:
Roughly 20% of pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriages in the first 20 weeks of gestation - would you consider those "murder" as well?
And if you-all are so gung-ho on this "right to life" crap, why do you only carry your agenda up to the point when the fetus is born? Because, from what I've seen most of you couldn't give a rat's ass about that baby after it leaves the womb.
Roughly 20% of pregnancies end in spontaneous miscarriages in the first 20 weeks of gestation - would you consider those "murder" as well?
And if you-all are so gung-ho on this "right to life" crap, why do you only carry your agenda up to the point when the fetus is born? Because, from what I've seen most of you couldn't give a rat's ass about that baby after it leaves the womb.
61
Dan Savage in Salon:
"I stepped toward him, holding my photograph.
"This is my son," I said. "Will you autograph it?"
"I talked his mother out of aborting him. You're my hero, Mr. Bauer."
"He looked at me and broke into a wide smile.
"Good for you," Gary said, "that's wonderful."
.
Wonderful?!
What was so Wonderful about DJ's mom not paying an abortionist to remove a parasitic clump of inhuman cellular garbage from her body?
An undifferentiated clump of cells?
A blob of tissue?
A Parasite?
What was so wonderful about the fact that DJ's mom didn't have an abortion?
"I stepped toward him, holding my photograph.
"This is my son," I said. "Will you autograph it?"
"I talked his mother out of aborting him. You're my hero, Mr. Bauer."
"He looked at me and broke into a wide smile.
"Good for you," Gary said, "that's wonderful."
.
Wonderful?!
What was so Wonderful about DJ's mom not paying an abortionist to remove a parasitic clump of inhuman cellular garbage from her body?
An undifferentiated clump of cells?
A blob of tissue?
A Parasite?
What was so wonderful about the fact that DJ's mom didn't have an abortion?
62
@7
Dan's story @61 concerns us.
We have problems with Dan encouraging shame and guilt in some poor pregnant crack whore. Specifically shame and guilt of natural things like her own body, and sex.
It's a classic brainwashing technique.
Why would Dan want control of her body?
For what possible disgusting purpose?
Why would Dan talk her out of an abortion, and condemn someone to a fucked up and miserable life of poverty?
Doesn't Dan realize there is a real shortage of Christian mother-and-child support centers in Seattle?
Why does Dan want to tell her how to live and what to do?
Doesn't Dan realize that Abortions should be more widespread? That not every dimwitted gullible uterus deserves to have a baby?
What Possible Good
could come from
Dan talking DJ's mother out of aborting him?
Dan's story @61 concerns us.
We have problems with Dan encouraging shame and guilt in some poor pregnant crack whore. Specifically shame and guilt of natural things like her own body, and sex.
It's a classic brainwashing technique.
Why would Dan want control of her body?
For what possible disgusting purpose?
Why would Dan talk her out of an abortion, and condemn someone to a fucked up and miserable life of poverty?
Doesn't Dan realize there is a real shortage of Christian mother-and-child support centers in Seattle?
Why does Dan want to tell her how to live and what to do?
Doesn't Dan realize that Abortions should be more widespread? That not every dimwitted gullible uterus deserves to have a baby?
What Possible Good
could come from
Dan talking DJ's mother out of aborting him?
63
@62:
It doesn't concern you in the least. You're simply fishing for some way to show an inconsistency in Dan's position, which your previous post @61 completely fails to do, since, like most of your ilk, the concepts of irony, satire and humor in general are completely beyond your ken.
The reason Dan's position isn't inconsistent can be very easily demonstrated: 1.) DJ's mother was never forced to carry her child to term. She maintained the RIGHT TO CHOOSE whether to abort throughout the entire process, but decided not to. People like you on the other hand would FORCE her to carry the fetus all the way through birth, regardless of whether it was best for the parent OR the child. 2.) Dan and Terry actually put their money where their mouth's were (or at least where Dan's mouth is) by adopting DJ, and have cared for him, raised him, seen to his needs and given him a home, love and support ever since, unlike most of your your kind who scream to your High Heaven about the "rights" of the unborn, but who DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to provide for the life, health and well-being of a child after it leaves the womb, and who, in point of fact, ACTIVELY OBSTRUCT other people from doing so, regardless of their other qualifications for parenthood, simply because you disapprove of whom they choose to love.
And THAT is why nobody gives a shit about your craven, sanctimonious hypocrisy.
It doesn't concern you in the least. You're simply fishing for some way to show an inconsistency in Dan's position, which your previous post @61 completely fails to do, since, like most of your ilk, the concepts of irony, satire and humor in general are completely beyond your ken.
The reason Dan's position isn't inconsistent can be very easily demonstrated: 1.) DJ's mother was never forced to carry her child to term. She maintained the RIGHT TO CHOOSE whether to abort throughout the entire process, but decided not to. People like you on the other hand would FORCE her to carry the fetus all the way through birth, regardless of whether it was best for the parent OR the child. 2.) Dan and Terry actually put their money where their mouth's were (or at least where Dan's mouth is) by adopting DJ, and have cared for him, raised him, seen to his needs and given him a home, love and support ever since, unlike most of your your kind who scream to your High Heaven about the "rights" of the unborn, but who DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to provide for the life, health and well-being of a child after it leaves the womb, and who, in point of fact, ACTIVELY OBSTRUCT other people from doing so, regardless of their other qualifications for parenthood, simply because you disapprove of whom they choose to love.
And THAT is why nobody gives a shit about your craven, sanctimonious hypocrisy.
64
60
Roughly 3.62 MILLION Americans die of old age each year - would you consider those "murder" as well?
Roughly 3.62 MILLION Americans die of old age each year - would you consider those "murder" as well?
68
63
"And THAT is why nobody gives a shit about your craven, sanctimonious hypocrisy."
you did a lot of typing for someone who doesn't give a shit....
"And THAT is why nobody gives a shit about your craven, sanctimonious hypocrisy."
you did a lot of typing for someone who doesn't give a shit....
70
59
I'm sorry you feel manipulated.
Let's do it again,
but very slowly,
so you can keep up:
"Conception creates a new unique human life."
You said @55: "It is alive, certainly."
You also said @55: "It is human, yes."
You also said @55: "Mixing sperm and egg together does nothing more than create a new arrangement of DNA" and "Unique DNA is just a set of chemical instructions."
OK, let's string it together...(keep up!)
"Mixing sperm and egg together" (aka Conception) "create(s) a new arrangement of DNA" (that is a) "Unique" "It is human, yes." and "It is alive, certainly."
in other words-
Conception creates a new unique human life.
"Soul" is a religious concept.
We're talking about Biology.
And protecting human life.
You are entitled to hold religious beliefs that teach you not to respect human life but if you go out and kill someone you may run afoul of the law.
Denying the "personhood" of others is a common tactic of oppressors.
Nazis didn't see Jews as human.
Nor slaveholders Africans.
Rawanda. Bosnia. Armenia...
Denying the "personhood" of your victim is always the first step to genocide.
nasty stuff....
The problem is not a perceived lack of 'imagination' in the yet-to-be-born that somehow makes it OK to slaughter them.
It is a lack of imagination (or, maybe, compassion?) in You that will not see that these tiny helpless innocent living things are fellow homo sapiens deserving of respect and protection.
The absence of "humanity" resides not in the yet-to-be-born;
it is in those who callously remorselessly slaughter them.
I'm sorry you feel manipulated.
Let's do it again,
but very slowly,
so you can keep up:
"Conception creates a new unique human life."
You said @55: "It is alive, certainly."
You also said @55: "It is human, yes."
You also said @55: "Mixing sperm and egg together does nothing more than create a new arrangement of DNA" and "Unique DNA is just a set of chemical instructions."
OK, let's string it together...(keep up!)
"Mixing sperm and egg together" (aka Conception) "create(s) a new arrangement of DNA" (that is a) "Unique" "It is human, yes." and "It is alive, certainly."
in other words-
Conception creates a new unique human life.
"Soul" is a religious concept.
We're talking about Biology.
And protecting human life.
You are entitled to hold religious beliefs that teach you not to respect human life but if you go out and kill someone you may run afoul of the law.
Denying the "personhood" of others is a common tactic of oppressors.
Nazis didn't see Jews as human.
Nor slaveholders Africans.
Rawanda. Bosnia. Armenia...
Denying the "personhood" of your victim is always the first step to genocide.
nasty stuff....
The problem is not a perceived lack of 'imagination' in the yet-to-be-born that somehow makes it OK to slaughter them.
It is a lack of imagination (or, maybe, compassion?) in You that will not see that these tiny helpless innocent living things are fellow homo sapiens deserving of respect and protection.
The absence of "humanity" resides not in the yet-to-be-born;
it is in those who callously remorselessly slaughter them.
71
I don't care if it's living or not. The fact is that it can't live unless it is living inside another person who does not want it there. It's her decision and no one else's. No one should be forced to go through pregnancy against her will.
72
71
No one is.
The fact that it is inside her is her own decision and the result of her actions.
It WAS her decision.
She made it.
Abortion is not about 'choice'.
The Choice has already been made.
Abortion is about trying to get away from the consequences of an already made Choice.
People who don't want the consequences shouldn't make the Choice that creates them.
No one is.
The fact that it is inside her is her own decision and the result of her actions.
It WAS her decision.
She made it.
Abortion is not about 'choice'.
The Choice has already been made.
Abortion is about trying to get away from the consequences of an already made Choice.
People who don't want the consequences shouldn't make the Choice that creates them.
74
@72
If you have sex and catch an STD, do you want to be able to receive medical treatment for it? Even though you CHOSE to have an STD?
If your spouse beats you, do you want to be able to leave him? Even though you CHOSE to be beaten?
If you get in a car accident and your car catches on fire, do you want someone to help pull you out? Even though you CHOSE to get in a fiery wreck?
Choosing to have sex does not equal choosing to get pregnant. Pregnancy and childbirth should not be a way for you to punish people for having sex that you don't approve of.
If you have sex and catch an STD, do you want to be able to receive medical treatment for it? Even though you CHOSE to have an STD?
If your spouse beats you, do you want to be able to leave him? Even though you CHOSE to be beaten?
If you get in a car accident and your car catches on fire, do you want someone to help pull you out? Even though you CHOSE to get in a fiery wreck?
Choosing to have sex does not equal choosing to get pregnant. Pregnancy and childbirth should not be a way for you to punish people for having sex that you don't approve of.
75
God, another abortion post? Nobody's going to comment on this shit, it's not controversial enough. Let's hear more about pit bulls and fixies.
76
@72, etc
I'm sure Jesus and all the tiny, precious, fragile little lives of the unborn feel a lot better that you spend oh so much time on a shitty blog fighting for them (or is that baiting people? I'm confused. clearly I need you to enlighten me in such concepts). you deserve the Congressional Medal of Honor for your valor. truly a man's conservative that even Teddy Roosevelt would admire!
I'm sure Jesus and all the tiny, precious, fragile little lives of the unborn feel a lot better that you spend oh so much time on a shitty blog fighting for them (or is that baiting people? I'm confused. clearly I need you to enlighten me in such concepts). you deserve the Congressional Medal of Honor for your valor. truly a man's conservative that even Teddy Roosevelt would admire!
78
76
no, no medals, please-
advocating for the
voiceless and helpless
is all the reward I need.....
no, no medals, please-
advocating for the
voiceless and helpless
is all the reward I need.....
79
no, I insist. we have a ticker tape parade ready for you, and a National Holiday in your honor... oh wait, I forgot conservatives are contemptuous over those because they only benefit guv'ment workers. my mistake!
and yes it does.
and yes it does.
81
fuck it, we're doing it anyway:
as an agent in the left's War on Christmas, I proclaim that as soon as we remove the last vestiges of Christianity from said holiday, it shall be renamed Anonymous Coward Solstice Celebration. families everywhere will sit around the computer while our houses burn in protest to the IRS. after dad dies in a stupid, stupid act of terrorism, our daughters will ask their mothers, "where the hell are we gonna live now?".
as an agent in the left's War on Christmas, I proclaim that as soon as we remove the last vestiges of Christianity from said holiday, it shall be renamed Anonymous Coward Solstice Celebration. families everywhere will sit around the computer while our houses burn in protest to the IRS. after dad dies in a stupid, stupid act of terrorism, our daughters will ask their mothers, "where the hell are we gonna live now?".
82
Ohhhh Allegedly @69, you fail again! I'm not an abortion groupie, I'm an abortionIST.
Never had one (lucky enough to never have needed one), I just do them for others. Weirdly enough I think it's my moral duty to help make them available.
Never had one (lucky enough to never have needed one), I just do them for others. Weirdly enough I think it's my moral duty to help make them available.
83
70, 72, 80
You seem to have an obsessive fetish over the concept of "unique new human life!"
It is not a person, nor have you answered my challenge to prove that it is a person. You have whined, ad nauseam, that because it is part of the human life-cycle it somehow deserves our undying devotion. It is the same as a wad of sperm, or an egg.
Being alive is not what makes us humans special. Bacteria are alive.
Human DNA is not what makes us special. 99% matches a chimp.
Unique DNA is not what makes an individual person special. Identical twins, amazingly enough, are two different people. Exact same DNA.
String them all together, and you get living tissue that might become a person, given a host body, enough luck, and time. But that's all it is. Living tissue, certainly, but we are not in any way obligated to protect it. We have real people in this world, in need of our protection. It is not a "vulnerable new member of society". Just tissue.
You seem to have an obsessive fetish over the concept of "unique new human life!"
It is not a person, nor have you answered my challenge to prove that it is a person. You have whined, ad nauseam, that because it is part of the human life-cycle it somehow deserves our undying devotion. It is the same as a wad of sperm, or an egg.
Being alive is not what makes us humans special. Bacteria are alive.
Human DNA is not what makes us special. 99% matches a chimp.
Unique DNA is not what makes an individual person special. Identical twins, amazingly enough, are two different people. Exact same DNA.
String them all together, and you get living tissue that might become a person, given a host body, enough luck, and time. But that's all it is. Living tissue, certainly, but we are not in any way obligated to protect it. We have real people in this world, in need of our protection. It is not a "vulnerable new member of society". Just tissue.
85
Yeah, and no one chooses to be conceived, either. Just how far can we take that idiotic point?
Abortion has been around since the first woman got pregnant, and will be around until the last woman has given birth. All "outlawing" abortion will do is clean up the statistics. The conservatives know that, and they don't care. They love to make a big show about "murdering babies", but the truth of the matter is that they're a bunch of puritan freaks who believe that women who manage to get pregnant unintentionally "deserve" to carry the baby to term.
Of course, they don't want to pay anything towards supporting that unwanted baby once it's born, but that's another matter entirely (See my screeds about conservatives as Greedy Bastards for more info)
It makes them feel all good and righteous, and feeds into their victim mentality because they fancy themselves as the "defenders of the unborn" or some such nonsense. It doesn't make any sense, but it doesn't have to. As long as it makes them feel better about themselves and their many, many failures, it's A-OK with them.
Abortion has been around since the first woman got pregnant, and will be around until the last woman has given birth. All "outlawing" abortion will do is clean up the statistics. The conservatives know that, and they don't care. They love to make a big show about "murdering babies", but the truth of the matter is that they're a bunch of puritan freaks who believe that women who manage to get pregnant unintentionally "deserve" to carry the baby to term.
Of course, they don't want to pay anything towards supporting that unwanted baby once it's born, but that's another matter entirely (See my screeds about conservatives as Greedy Bastards for more info)
It makes them feel all good and righteous, and feeds into their victim mentality because they fancy themselves as the "defenders of the unborn" or some such nonsense. It doesn't make any sense, but it doesn't have to. As long as it makes them feel better about themselves and their many, many failures, it's A-OK with them.
86
Living in Florida, I really, truly hope this doesn't pass. As a full-time student barely making rent and taking every precaution not to get pregnant, if I were to become knocked up AND it were ILLEGAL to have an abortion, I feel I would have no other choice but to find a potentially unsafe black-market abortionist. I will not give a child I carried for 9 months up for adoption UNTIL adoption is legal for gays and lesbians (in FL anyway).
And this is what these pro-life shitheads don't realize: they are forcing young women to take drastic measures to do what they think is best for THEIR lives and THEIR bodies. We wouldn't have gut-wrenchingly sad shows like Teen Mom if abortion were morally accepted and totally legal.
And this is what these pro-life shitheads don't realize: they are forcing young women to take drastic measures to do what they think is best for THEIR lives and THEIR bodies. We wouldn't have gut-wrenchingly sad shows like Teen Mom if abortion were morally accepted and totally legal.
87
True, true, true darlin' Woodbun @84, and thank you for your kind words. As a provider it melts my heart to see the way you stick up for the rights of women.
(I don't exactly get a lot of positive feedback other than on Slog. Which is OK, because if I did abortions to please others I would've stopped long ago. No, I do them because people I love have needed them, and I am grateful to the doctors who helped them.)
(...And because my dear old dad, who remembered the pre-Roe days from when he was on staff at Cook County told me it was my duty to help women. He was right.)
(I don't exactly get a lot of positive feedback other than on Slog. Which is OK, because if I did abortions to please others I would've stopped long ago. No, I do them because people I love have needed them, and I am grateful to the doctors who helped them.)
(...And because my dear old dad, who remembered the pre-Roe days from when he was on staff at Cook County told me it was my duty to help women. He was right.)
88
CamillaBear, just keep fighting and speaking up, and you'll keep your rights. We only lose our rights when we are foolish enough to keep quiet about them. As Audre Lorde said in a slightly different context, your silence will not protect you.
89
86
Goshdarnit, seeing as how abortion is such a heinous immoral abomination it may be quite a while before it becomes morally accepted.
Potentially unsafe back alley abortions are scary, of course front alley abortions are pretty scary for the babies...
Your devotion to homosexual adoption is moving- just how many of your babies would you be willing to kill for 'the cause'?
But seeing as how you are taking EVERY precaution not to get pregnant you really have nothing to fear- abstinence is 100% effective.
Goshdarnit, seeing as how abortion is such a heinous immoral abomination it may be quite a while before it becomes morally accepted.
Potentially unsafe back alley abortions are scary, of course front alley abortions are pretty scary for the babies...
Your devotion to homosexual adoption is moving- just how many of your babies would you be willing to kill for 'the cause'?
But seeing as how you are taking EVERY precaution not to get pregnant you really have nothing to fear- abstinence is 100% effective.
90
@all the people who say, "unique DNA = unique person/human being!"
I have a question that no one has ever really answered for me. I was wondering how you all handle human chimeras. Human chimeras are individuals who are made up of fraternal twin embryos that fused into one embryo.
To clarify, let's say a woman has sex and she releases two eggs that meet up with two sperm, creating two separate and genetically unique embryos. According to your logic, we now have two people. But here comes the fun part! For some reason, the embryos fuse together, creating one embryo! From this one embryo, one fetus develops and one baby is born. 1 embryo + 1 embryo = 1 baby.
In your mind, what has happened to the two people/babies you say originally existed? Have they both died to create a new baby? Did one of them die so that the other could live? Do they both still exist in one body?
If you'd like to learn more about human chimeras, this is a place to start:
http://genetics.suite101.com/article.cfm…
I have a question that no one has ever really answered for me. I was wondering how you all handle human chimeras. Human chimeras are individuals who are made up of fraternal twin embryos that fused into one embryo.
To clarify, let's say a woman has sex and she releases two eggs that meet up with two sperm, creating two separate and genetically unique embryos. According to your logic, we now have two people. But here comes the fun part! For some reason, the embryos fuse together, creating one embryo! From this one embryo, one fetus develops and one baby is born. 1 embryo + 1 embryo = 1 baby.
In your mind, what has happened to the two people/babies you say originally existed? Have they both died to create a new baby? Did one of them die so that the other could live? Do they both still exist in one body?
If you'd like to learn more about human chimeras, this is a place to start:
http://genetics.suite101.com/article.cfm…
91
85
Rape has been around since before the first woman got pregnant, and will be around...blah blah blah...
Murder too.
Maybe we could just legalize everything and save a ton of money on police and courts and jails.
Plus our cities would instantly become "crime free".
What is it they say;
"if Crime is outlawed only Outlaws will commit Crime!..."
Rape has been around since before the first woman got pregnant, and will be around...blah blah blah...
Murder too.
Maybe we could just legalize everything and save a ton of money on police and courts and jails.
Plus our cities would instantly become "crime free".
What is it they say;
"if Crime is outlawed only Outlaws will commit Crime!..."
92
We have always found the
"if you are not personally willing to raise this baby of mine then you have no right to protest if I KILL it..."
argument to be profoundly unconvincing.
"if you are not personally willing to raise this baby of mine then you have no right to protest if I KILL it..."
argument to be profoundly unconvincing.
93
82
gawd woman, everybody who reads slog knows you are an abortionist- the blood lust must totally kill all ability to perceive sarcasm and irony.
gawd woman, everybody who reads slog knows you are an abortionist- the blood lust must totally kill all ability to perceive sarcasm and irony.
94
83
gosh woody, they don't want or need your undying devotion.
they would be grateful, however, if you would refrain from hacking them to pieces.
84
it's TOTALLY true-
she's everybody's hero;
even has a superhero outfit-
it's tiedyed red to mask the baby splatter.
(saving the world is a bloodier job than you might guess...)
gosh woody, they don't want or need your undying devotion.
they would be grateful, however, if you would refrain from hacking them to pieces.
84
it's TOTALLY true-
she's everybody's hero;
even has a superhero outfit-
it's tiedyed red to mask the baby splatter.
(saving the world is a bloodier job than you might guess...)
95
hello 92
"if you are not personally willing to raise this baby of mine then you have no right to protest if I KILL it..."
Oh, we don't kill babies. Babies can be given to others to raise, adopted out by the state, etc. Babies aren't a threat to anyone.
Pregnancy, on the other hand, is a parasite that is inside one woman. And that woman has every right to have it removed. You still have not answered my challenge to prove that said parasite is a person.
"if you are not personally willing to raise this baby of mine then you have no right to protest if I KILL it..."
Oh, we don't kill babies. Babies can be given to others to raise, adopted out by the state, etc. Babies aren't a threat to anyone.
Pregnancy, on the other hand, is a parasite that is inside one woman. And that woman has every right to have it removed. You still have not answered my challenge to prove that said parasite is a person.
96
95
Perhaps you would benefit from exposure to a perspective on pregnancy other than your mother's.
Perhaps you would benefit from exposure to a perspective on pregnancy other than your mother's.
97
@96 . . . is there a point to your post other than to insult 95? Or is it a more general "Only parents who have terrible children can be pro-choice" statement?
98
96
Your compassion is misplaced. First trimester embryos don't really have much of a mind to care whether they get aborted or not.
My mother did get an abortion. Then when she was ready, she had me. Then my sister. And after two kids, she wasn't able to have more for medical reasons, unrelated to 1 abortion.
Why, if not for abortion, my dearly beloved little sister would not be here! And before you make that argument, I do not grieve for some lost elder sibling, any more than I grieve for the other sperm from my father.
Your compassion is misplaced. First trimester embryos don't really have much of a mind to care whether they get aborted or not.
My mother did get an abortion. Then when she was ready, she had me. Then my sister. And after two kids, she wasn't able to have more for medical reasons, unrelated to 1 abortion.
Why, if not for abortion, my dearly beloved little sister would not be here! And before you make that argument, I do not grieve for some lost elder sibling, any more than I grieve for the other sperm from my father.
99
you can't fool us we saw Alien all those damn parasites have to be squashed as soon as they hatch
100
@94 et al: Maybe if you just type the word MURDER into a comments field a few thousand more times you'll change somebody's mind about abortion.
101
94, your knowledge of French is execrable, and your acquaintance with ballet even more laughable.
103
94, Red? Where'd you get THAT idea? I wear regular hospital scrubs, no apron, no gown. There is no "spatter." You must be reading and believing your own stupid propaganda. Very clean, a whole five minutes it takes to do it, no identifiable fetal tissue---mostly spongy stuff (that would be the placenta which is most of what you're dealing with in the first trimester anyway).
Sorry to disappoint you....
Sorry to disappoint you....
104
Mary W. was examined by an ob/gyn and found to be 28 weeks pregnant. This ob/gyn counseled that Mary's pregnancy was too advanced for an abortion, and advised Mary to consider an adoption plan. Somehow, Mary learned that Dr. William Baxter Waddill would be willing to do an abortion, which he initiated by saline injection at Westminster Community Hospital in California.
Mary's baby, a 2 lb, 8 oz infant girl, was expelled that evening and discovered by a nurse who was attending Mary.
The nurse clamped the cord and was about to put the baby in a bucket for transport to the pathology lab, when she noticed that the baby was moving and crying. Another nurse suggested putting the baby in the bucket anyway. Yet another nurse testified that she had seen the infant move but said nothing about this to avoid distressing Mary. The first nurse summoned the nursing supervisor, who noted that the baby was pink and making sucking motions. She sent the baby to the nursery and summoned Waddill.
A nurse at the nursery cleared the infant's throat, placed her in an isolette, and charted a heartrate of 88. A neonatal ICU nurse began providing respiratory assistance on the little girl, and asked for help performing an intubation, which is routine NICU care.
Waddill arrived and dismissed all the others from room. Several witnesses heard Waddill instruct staff "not to do a goddam thing for the baby." An ER doctor saw Waddill squeeze the umbilical cord, whereupon the "child jerked its body and gasped for air."
A tape was entered into evidence of a call from Waddill to a pediatrician, Dr. Ronald Cornelsen.
Dr. Cornelsen testified that when he arrived at the hospital the infant was breathing and had a heart rate of 60-70. There were bruises on her neck. Dr. Cornelsen testified that he saw Waddill press on the infant's neck, saying, "I can't find the goddam trachea," and "This baby won't stop breathing." Dr. Cornelsen testified, "I said, 'Why not just leave the baby alone?' He said, 'This baby can't live or it will be a big mess.'" Waddill requested potssium choloride, for an injection to stop the baby's heart, but Dr. Cornelsen wouldn't let the nurse get it. Dr. Cornelsen said Waddill also asked for a bucket to drown the baby in.
Waddill said that all of his actions were done in the best interests of the mother and the baby.
A pathologist examined the baby's lungs and concluded that she'd been alive for at least 30 minutes. The neck trauma was "consistent with manual pressure, and inconsistent with saline." This pathologist also testified that only the infant's placenta and small bowel seemed to have been "significantly affected by the saline," meaning that the baby had not suffered fatal injury from exposure to the saline in-utero. The autopsy found the cause of the baby's death to have been "manual strangulation." The baby's gestational age was determined to have been 29 to 31 weeks at autopsy.
All told, over 13 weeks of testimony, the witnesses described three unsuccessful attempts by Waddill to strangle Mary's baby, and the fourth, successful, attempt.
Mary later sued Waddill, saying that he'd never told her that her baby might been born alive, and that she never would have consented to the abortion had she known this was possible.
More...
Mary's baby, a 2 lb, 8 oz infant girl, was expelled that evening and discovered by a nurse who was attending Mary.
The nurse clamped the cord and was about to put the baby in a bucket for transport to the pathology lab, when she noticed that the baby was moving and crying. Another nurse suggested putting the baby in the bucket anyway. Yet another nurse testified that she had seen the infant move but said nothing about this to avoid distressing Mary. The first nurse summoned the nursing supervisor, who noted that the baby was pink and making sucking motions. She sent the baby to the nursery and summoned Waddill.
A nurse at the nursery cleared the infant's throat, placed her in an isolette, and charted a heartrate of 88. A neonatal ICU nurse began providing respiratory assistance on the little girl, and asked for help performing an intubation, which is routine NICU care.
Waddill arrived and dismissed all the others from room. Several witnesses heard Waddill instruct staff "not to do a goddam thing for the baby." An ER doctor saw Waddill squeeze the umbilical cord, whereupon the "child jerked its body and gasped for air."
A tape was entered into evidence of a call from Waddill to a pediatrician, Dr. Ronald Cornelsen.
Dr. Cornelsen testified that when he arrived at the hospital the infant was breathing and had a heart rate of 60-70. There were bruises on her neck. Dr. Cornelsen testified that he saw Waddill press on the infant's neck, saying, "I can't find the goddam trachea," and "This baby won't stop breathing." Dr. Cornelsen testified, "I said, 'Why not just leave the baby alone?' He said, 'This baby can't live or it will be a big mess.'" Waddill requested potssium choloride, for an injection to stop the baby's heart, but Dr. Cornelsen wouldn't let the nurse get it. Dr. Cornelsen said Waddill also asked for a bucket to drown the baby in.
Waddill said that all of his actions were done in the best interests of the mother and the baby.
A pathologist examined the baby's lungs and concluded that she'd been alive for at least 30 minutes. The neck trauma was "consistent with manual pressure, and inconsistent with saline." This pathologist also testified that only the infant's placenta and small bowel seemed to have been "significantly affected by the saline," meaning that the baby had not suffered fatal injury from exposure to the saline in-utero. The autopsy found the cause of the baby's death to have been "manual strangulation." The baby's gestational age was determined to have been 29 to 31 weeks at autopsy.
All told, over 13 weeks of testimony, the witnesses described three unsuccessful attempts by Waddill to strangle Mary's baby, and the fourth, successful, attempt.
Mary later sued Waddill, saying that he'd never told her that her baby might been born alive, and that she never would have consented to the abortion had she known this was possible.
105
@104 Even assuming that absolutely everything you said is true (and I find that incredibly difficult to believe), what exactly do you hope to gain by posting it? People who argue for safe, legal abortions don't similarly argue that it is acceptable to kill babies. Apart from a possible troll, you aren't going to find anyone who thinks such actions would be acceptable. Furthermore, if this is/was true, the actions of the staff involved would ALREADY be illegal under current law (the same law that makes abortion legal). Making different kinds of abortion illegal would not impact the legality of the situation you are describing at all.
It's like going to a discussion about when it is acceptable to kill in self-defense and bringing up some story about the horror of some man who broke into a woman's house and shot her in her sleep. It isn't relevant to the topic at hand.
It's like going to a discussion about when it is acceptable to kill in self-defense and bringing up some story about the horror of some man who broke into a woman's house and shot her in her sleep. It isn't relevant to the topic at hand.
106
Lorran, @105, this is typical for this troll. If you call him on his sensationsalistic illogical representations, he falls back on some Grand Guignol story (he will have to look this phrase up) that is totally beside the point, as you have so lucidly pointed out.
You and I can tell him that one-third of American women have had abortions, that first-trimester abortions are safe and unspectacular, that later abortions typically are performed for the life or health of the mother or for serious anomalies, and it makes no difference. He'll reply with some story about infanticide, as if it were germane. At least tonight he's sparing us the stupid blank verse he sometimes recites for our benefit.
You and I can tell him that one-third of American women have had abortions, that first-trimester abortions are safe and unspectacular, that later abortions typically are performed for the life or health of the mother or for serious anomalies, and it makes no difference. He'll reply with some story about infanticide, as if it were germane. At least tonight he's sparing us the stupid blank verse he sometimes recites for our benefit.
108
I hope they overturn Roe, I love fish eggs! They have no idea the shitstorm they'll pull down on top of themselvs. Next if they'll bring back the draft (not enough dumbshits enlisting you know), and the liberals will be set to get more seats in the senate, real liberals. Fuck you lieberman, dickhead!
109
@106
Thank you for making abortion safe and unspectacular.
(It's not like we wanted to live, anyway-
I mean, if your own mother wants you dead do you really want someone passing a law that says she Has to have you?
So yeah, someone jab a scalpel thru my skull and stir my brains up. It beats being burned with saline and strangled.
You're doing us a favor. Really...)
Thank you for making abortion safe and unspectacular.
(It's not like we wanted to live, anyway-
I mean, if your own mother wants you dead do you really want someone passing a law that says she Has to have you?
So yeah, someone jab a scalpel thru my skull and stir my brains up. It beats being burned with saline and strangled.
You're doing us a favor. Really...)
110
109,
The embryos do not care. The same way my sperm don't care when I flush them down the toilet.
The embryos do not care. The same way my sperm don't care when I flush them down the toilet.
111
110
would that be the MILLIONS of sperm you flush down the toilet EVERY DAY?
have you every thought about getting that leak looked at?
would that be the MILLIONS of sperm you flush down the toilet EVERY DAY?
have you every thought about getting that leak looked at?
112
106
We wonder how many of those women are like Mary W, misled by physicians they trust.
Physicians who are sworn to do no harm but manage to slaughter 800,000 a year.
Physicians who can't find it in their 'ethics' to start in IV for the execution of cold blooded murderers but have no problem playing God with the yet-to-be-born.
Did you know that when women see an untrasound of their baby they are more likely to let it live?
How much do abortionists share with their patients about when life begins and what exactly it is they are killing...
"A clump of cells" is a very Orwellian way to refer to a human life.
We're sure that is not by accident.
It's like @7 said: Because if you can be made to feel negatively about something so fundamental (like your own baby), then you can be lead (by abortionists) to the 'solution', Abortion.
Classic brainwashing technique.
It's about control. You've got it.
.
We wonder how many of those women are like Mary W, misled by physicians they trust.
Physicians who are sworn to do no harm but manage to slaughter 800,000 a year.
Physicians who can't find it in their 'ethics' to start in IV for the execution of cold blooded murderers but have no problem playing God with the yet-to-be-born.
Did you know that when women see an untrasound of their baby they are more likely to let it live?
How much do abortionists share with their patients about when life begins and what exactly it is they are killing...
"A clump of cells" is a very Orwellian way to refer to a human life.
We're sure that is not by accident.
It's like @7 said: Because if you can be made to feel negatively about something so fundamental (like your own baby), then you can be lead (by abortionists) to the 'solution', Abortion.
Classic brainwashing technique.
It's about control. You've got it.
.
113
@106
A 28 week abortion is infancide?
Isn't that what Tiller did every day?
Strangling 2 pound baby girls to death?
(hey- Wasn't Tiller your Hero?)
we won't be so crass as to point out that it isn't a very fair fight...
A 28 week abortion is infancide?
Isn't that what Tiller did every day?
Strangling 2 pound baby girls to death?
(hey- Wasn't Tiller your Hero?)
we won't be so crass as to point out that it isn't a very fair fight...
114
113
Of course, the Abortionists on Slog will point out that Waddill was a clumsy oaf and his mistake was letting the baby get all the way out before strangling her to death.
As long as he left her part of the way in he could crush her skull or strangle her or pop her with a .38 special and it would all be nice and tidy and legal and Unspectacular.
Sometimes the difference between Heroic Abortion and Infancide is just a few centimeters.
For the Abortionist, at least.
For the baby it's all the same.....
Of course, the Abortionists on Slog will point out that Waddill was a clumsy oaf and his mistake was letting the baby get all the way out before strangling her to death.
As long as he left her part of the way in he could crush her skull or strangle her or pop her with a .38 special and it would all be nice and tidy and legal and Unspectacular.
Sometimes the difference between Heroic Abortion and Infancide is just a few centimeters.
For the Abortionist, at least.
For the baby it's all the same.....
115
111
112
113
114
You have screamed that it is a person. You have not proven it. My challenge still stands.
112
113
114
You have screamed that it is a person. You have not proven it. My challenge still stands.
116
115
you said it was a living human.
that doesn't deserve any rights.
that is a matter between you and your conscious.
I wonder if anyone ever convinced Hitler that Jews were people?
you said it was a living human.
that doesn't deserve any rights.
that is a matter between you and your conscious.
I wonder if anyone ever convinced Hitler that Jews were people?
117
114: You're not even close to calling it murder 1000 times, anonymous commenter. You must keep typing, at all costs! Theoretical, metaphorical lives are at stake -- no, wait, I mean real, non-theoretical lives. Of babies!
Keep typing! For God sakes, keep typing! You've almost convinced me.
Keep typing! For God sakes, keep typing! You've almost convinced me.
118
@112, 113, 114
Pro-choice individuals are not in favor of elective abortion of viable fetuses. In order for an abortion to be legal in the third trimester (and 28 weeks IS the third trimester) there has to be something seriously wrong (the mother is in imminent danger of dying, the fetus is already dead, the fetus is incapable of surviving outside of the womb due to some type of defect) and so forth.
What you are engaging in is in fact a logical fallacy called a STRAWMAN. Pro-choice individuals make one argument (women ought to be able to have elective abortions in the first trimester, and there should be reasonable restrictions on second and third trimester abortions) but rather than addressing that argument, you take an argument no one would support (killing viable 28 week fetuses for no good reason and not informing the woman that a 28 old fetus is viable) and declare that THIS is the pro-choice argument.
The simple fact is that if you made first trimester abortions illegal, you would not impact the legality of the situation you described. It would be no more or less legal to kill a 28 week fetus because elective abortion of a 28 week old fetus is ALREADY illegal. If the situation described actually happened (which I doubt), then the doctor could ALREADY be charged with murder.
It is, as I said before, walking into a discussion about when it is acceptable to kill in self-defense and declaring that the opposing side thinks it's ok to break into a person's house and shoot them in their sleep. Outlawing a person's right to self-defense won't make it more illegal to break into people's houses and shoot them in their sleep.
Pro-choice individuals are not in favor of elective abortion of viable fetuses. In order for an abortion to be legal in the third trimester (and 28 weeks IS the third trimester) there has to be something seriously wrong (the mother is in imminent danger of dying, the fetus is already dead, the fetus is incapable of surviving outside of the womb due to some type of defect) and so forth.
What you are engaging in is in fact a logical fallacy called a STRAWMAN. Pro-choice individuals make one argument (women ought to be able to have elective abortions in the first trimester, and there should be reasonable restrictions on second and third trimester abortions) but rather than addressing that argument, you take an argument no one would support (killing viable 28 week fetuses for no good reason and not informing the woman that a 28 old fetus is viable) and declare that THIS is the pro-choice argument.
The simple fact is that if you made first trimester abortions illegal, you would not impact the legality of the situation you described. It would be no more or less legal to kill a 28 week fetus because elective abortion of a 28 week old fetus is ALREADY illegal. If the situation described actually happened (which I doubt), then the doctor could ALREADY be charged with murder.
It is, as I said before, walking into a discussion about when it is acceptable to kill in self-defense and declaring that the opposing side thinks it's ok to break into a person's house and shoot them in their sleep. Outlawing a person's right to self-defense won't make it more illegal to break into people's houses and shoot them in their sleep.
119
@106
How knowledge are your patients in French?
Is their acquaintance with ballet acceptable to you?
Do you agree with @10-
That it's better to kill a child than 'condemn' them to a fucked up and miserable life of poverty because they were born to someone uneducated and poor.
Are any of your patients uneducated and poor?
Do you agree with @24-
That Abortions should be more widespread. That too many dimwits are having babies.
Are any of your patients dimwits?
Do you agree with @53-
We should abort early and often. We'll be better for it. That some people are too dumb to have babies. Kids that end up being a drain on society.
Are you comfortable steering your patients toward the option of removing the parasitic nonhuman clump of cells before it becomes a drain on society?
How knowledge are your patients in French?
Is their acquaintance with ballet acceptable to you?
Do you agree with @10-
That it's better to kill a child than 'condemn' them to a fucked up and miserable life of poverty because they were born to someone uneducated and poor.
Are any of your patients uneducated and poor?
Do you agree with @24-
That Abortions should be more widespread. That too many dimwits are having babies.
Are any of your patients dimwits?
Do you agree with @53-
We should abort early and often. We'll be better for it. That some people are too dumb to have babies. Kids that end up being a drain on society.
Are you comfortable steering your patients toward the option of removing the parasitic nonhuman clump of cells before it becomes a drain on society?
120
119---I said none of those things, and you know it very well.
Whenever I call you on your misrepresentations you fall back on horror stories and lies. Apparently your arguments are so weak that they will not stand up to any scrutiny.
I am signing off this thread. I have better things to do than trade words with intellectually dishonest extremists.
Whenever I call you on your misrepresentations you fall back on horror stories and lies. Apparently your arguments are so weak that they will not stand up to any scrutiny.
I am signing off this thread. I have better things to do than trade words with intellectually dishonest extremists.
121
118
I'm sorry-
I've read back and I can't find any posts that declare that killing viable 28 week fetuses for no good reason and not informing the woman that a 28 old fetus is viable is the pro-choice argument.
But all Sloggers are very familiar with STRAWMEN as it is Dan's only rhetorical tactic.
First trimester children are very viable if no one surgically intervenes to kill them.
I find no moral distinction between killing them and killing the "viable" third trimester baby.
Perhaps to some the older baby looks more like a baby and they are able to easier muster sympathy.
Perhaps if first trimester babies had big soulful eyes and fur Liberals could screw up the same sympathy for them that they feel for baby seals.
Do you think?
Yes, first trimester babies are tiny and helpless and not very cute.
And often incredibly inconvenient. But that is a result of the Choices made by their parents and does not diminish their right to Life.
I'm sorry-
I've read back and I can't find any posts that declare that killing viable 28 week fetuses for no good reason and not informing the woman that a 28 old fetus is viable is the pro-choice argument.
But all Sloggers are very familiar with STRAWMEN as it is Dan's only rhetorical tactic.
First trimester children are very viable if no one surgically intervenes to kill them.
I find no moral distinction between killing them and killing the "viable" third trimester baby.
Perhaps to some the older baby looks more like a baby and they are able to easier muster sympathy.
Perhaps if first trimester babies had big soulful eyes and fur Liberals could screw up the same sympathy for them that they feel for baby seals.
Do you think?
Yes, first trimester babies are tiny and helpless and not very cute.
And often incredibly inconvenient. But that is a result of the Choices made by their parents and does not diminish their right to Life.
122
115
you said it was a living human.
No. "A human" is a person.
I said, very clearly, that it was human tissue. Not an individual person.
Same as the appendix I had removed.
you said it was a living human.
No. "A human" is a person.
I said, very clearly, that it was human tissue. Not an individual person.
Same as the appendix I had removed.
123
@120
Those were all questions @119.
Are they too awkward to answer?
Which "misrepresentations"?
Perhaps you misunderstood something I posted.
Surely your arguments are not so weak that they will not stand up to any scrutiny?
Those were all questions @119.
Are they too awkward to answer?
Which "misrepresentations"?
Perhaps you misunderstood something I posted.
Surely your arguments are not so weak that they will not stand up to any scrutiny?
124
121,
"viable" means "able to survive outside the womb".
"I find no moral distinction between killing them [first trimester] and killing the "viable" third trimester baby."
Then, you are a fool.
"viable" means "able to survive outside the womb".
"I find no moral distinction between killing them [first trimester] and killing the "viable" third trimester baby."
Then, you are a fool.
125
122
You really shouldn't go to an abortionist to have your appendix removed.
It might confuse them.
You really shouldn't go to an abortionist to have your appendix removed.
It might confuse them.
126
I feel sorry for our dear little troll. It must be terribly difficult waging "God's Righteous War For Teh Unborn" amongst all us Satanic baby-killers, but you know, God tells him to, so it's not like he has any choice in the matter, is it?
Still, I think he seriously needs to get laid; he just seems so tense and argumentative, and I can only imagine a little bit of old-fashioned coitus would do him a world of good. But the problem of course is: where's he going to find a woman who'll willingly give herself to a pimply-faced, obese, slovenly 39 year-old virgin still living in his Mom's basement?
I mean think about it. If it wasn't for SLOG he'd have absolutely no life at all.
So, c'mon all you Godless abortionistas, don't hate the poor little guy, just pity him and his lonely, miserable existence. Show him you care. If nothing else, it might get him to quiet down enough that his Mom upstairs will stop wishing she'd gone on that "Mexican vacation" back in '71.
Still, I think he seriously needs to get laid; he just seems so tense and argumentative, and I can only imagine a little bit of old-fashioned coitus would do him a world of good. But the problem of course is: where's he going to find a woman who'll willingly give herself to a pimply-faced, obese, slovenly 39 year-old virgin still living in his Mom's basement?
I mean think about it. If it wasn't for SLOG he'd have absolutely no life at all.
So, c'mon all you Godless abortionistas, don't hate the poor little guy, just pity him and his lonely, miserable existence. Show him you care. If nothing else, it might get him to quiet down enough that his Mom upstairs will stop wishing she'd gone on that "Mexican vacation" back in '71.
127
One day, a fellow who is pro-choice and also a completely bat shit crazy mad scientist will push the limits of pro-control sensibilities. I can't wait to see the press releases from his island fortress: "I have implanted a one week old clump of cells in an opossum which, in nine months, I am 99% certain will become a four-headed human devil baby that requires manflesh to live. I am express mailing it to the Focus on the Family headquarters. Abort or not, at your discretion."
128
124
That is the abortionists' definition.
vi·a·ble (v-bl)
adj.
1. Capable of living, developing, or germinating under favorable conditions.
2. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Biology) capable of normal growth and development.
First trimester babies are fully "capable of living, developing" and "normal growth and development"; the only "favorable conditions" they need is, again, that some Abortionist not go in and kill them.
Your "viability" would be equally in question if your mom hired a professional killer to kill you.
That is the abortionists' definition.
vi·a·ble (v-bl)
adj.
1. Capable of living, developing, or germinating under favorable conditions.
2. (Life Sciences & Allied Applications / Biology) capable of normal growth and development.
First trimester babies are fully "capable of living, developing" and "normal growth and development"; the only "favorable conditions" they need is, again, that some Abortionist not go in and kill them.
Your "viability" would be equally in question if your mom hired a professional killer to kill you.
129
128
"the only "favorable conditions" they need is, again, that some Abortionist not go in and kill them."
Correction: It also needs a continuous blood, oxygen, and nutrient supply from the woman in question. She has the right to refuse this. Hey, my family can refuse to feed me. Somehow, I just manage to survive better than an embryo in that situation. Possibly because I'm not inside someones body, and my existence is not in direct conflict with their health.
You still have not answered by challenge. Prove that it is a person.
"the only "favorable conditions" they need is, again, that some Abortionist not go in and kill them."
Correction: It also needs a continuous blood, oxygen, and nutrient supply from the woman in question. She has the right to refuse this. Hey, my family can refuse to feed me. Somehow, I just manage to survive better than an embryo in that situation. Possibly because I'm not inside someones body, and my existence is not in direct conflict with their health.
You still have not answered by challenge. Prove that it is a person.
132
130,
Yes. Because real children are morally worth protecting. Your little embryos are not.
I don't see you donating a cent to foster care, or anything that benefits real children.
Yes. Because real children are morally worth protecting. Your little embryos are not.
I don't see you donating a cent to foster care, or anything that benefits real children.
134
They can take our rights, demand we present papers at airports ...
BUT THEY CAN NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM!
BUT THEY CAN NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM!
135
For all their bluster about "protecting life," the anti-abortionists are notoriously absent from opposing anything at all that kills: nuclear weapons, genocide, war, murder, even medical research that would save people from dying. The issue of torture is a non-starter, humans can suffer horribly, which is a big thumbs-up from the anti-abortionist crowd.
The reason is, of course, all in the "innocent" part of "protecting life." Somewhere along the line, probably after the baby squirts out some liquid poo, or cries for no reason, a human loses that innocence the anti-abortionists worship so. It's all fine & dandy that our mercenaries & soldiers can murder indiscriminately, those humans are no longer "innocent." For one, they're not Christian, and even if they are, they're bad in some other way, so it's all good. Shoot, murder, rape, destroy, you won't hear a peep from the anti-abortionists.
The only people who are truly "innocent" _are_ the unborn. Anti-abortionists are almost completely Christian, and whether they state it or not, their position arises from the concept of Original Sin. Everyone born is born w/ that sin. A fetus, not being born, is the only truly innocent creature, and is thus to be protected. Once their born, well, say the anti-abortionists, who really cares. They're on their own, and we're not going to bother w/ their problems, they probably deserve them anyway.
The reason is, of course, all in the "innocent" part of "protecting life." Somewhere along the line, probably after the baby squirts out some liquid poo, or cries for no reason, a human loses that innocence the anti-abortionists worship so. It's all fine & dandy that our mercenaries & soldiers can murder indiscriminately, those humans are no longer "innocent." For one, they're not Christian, and even if they are, they're bad in some other way, so it's all good. Shoot, murder, rape, destroy, you won't hear a peep from the anti-abortionists.
The only people who are truly "innocent" _are_ the unborn. Anti-abortionists are almost completely Christian, and whether they state it or not, their position arises from the concept of Original Sin. Everyone born is born w/ that sin. A fetus, not being born, is the only truly innocent creature, and is thus to be protected. Once their born, well, say the anti-abortionists, who really cares. They're on their own, and we're not going to bother w/ their problems, they probably deserve them anyway.
137
@130, @131: The problem isn't that your reasoning is circular, it's that you haven't completed the circle often enough! It's like a chain letter -- forward your message on to one thousand people and good fortune will be yours! No cutting and pasting -- that would be cheating.
139
@118
As someone else said, in order for a fetus to be viable, it must be able to survive outside the womb. A first trimester isn’t viable so long as no one removes it from the womb because even if it is in the womb, it can’t survive outside of it.
In regards to your, “No one saying that pro-choicers think it is ok to kill 28 week fetuses for no reason!” then I refer you to posts 104, 112, 113, and 114 (all of which I believe you made, although I could be mistaken given that you are posting anonymously).
And this isn’t about being “cute.” Believe it or not, I find early stage zygotes to be absolutely adorable, much more so than third trimester fetuses. I actually can’t look at third trimester fetuses as I find them to be very distressing in appearance. But give me an 8 cell zygote? I can spend hours ooohing and ahhing. Interestingly enough, the fact that I think zygotes are adorable has actually caused people to believe I’m pro-life when I’m not.
Instead of being about cuteness, this is about characteristics. It asks the questions, in what ways does an 8 cell zygote differ from a 8 month fetus? Which of those characteristics are important? When do these important characteristics appear? Which characteristics carry more weight than others? To me, these are the important questions.
Simply, DNA is nothing more than a set of chemical blueprints on how to properly assemble a human. Over time, the fertilized egg and the mother’s body start assembling those blueprints into a fully fledged human. Rather than simply saying, “It’s the blueprint that’s important!” I believe that it is the assembled human parts that are important. This allows me to say that identical twins are two people and a human chimera is one person. To rephrase, if it was just about DNA, two people identical genetic codes would be one person and one body with two genetic codes would be two, and I cannot agree with this. Instead, I say it is about structure (aka development).
More...
As someone else said, in order for a fetus to be viable, it must be able to survive outside the womb. A first trimester isn’t viable so long as no one removes it from the womb because even if it is in the womb, it can’t survive outside of it.
In regards to your, “No one saying that pro-choicers think it is ok to kill 28 week fetuses for no reason!” then I refer you to posts 104, 112, 113, and 114 (all of which I believe you made, although I could be mistaken given that you are posting anonymously).
And this isn’t about being “cute.” Believe it or not, I find early stage zygotes to be absolutely adorable, much more so than third trimester fetuses. I actually can’t look at third trimester fetuses as I find them to be very distressing in appearance. But give me an 8 cell zygote? I can spend hours ooohing and ahhing. Interestingly enough, the fact that I think zygotes are adorable has actually caused people to believe I’m pro-life when I’m not.
Instead of being about cuteness, this is about characteristics. It asks the questions, in what ways does an 8 cell zygote differ from a 8 month fetus? Which of those characteristics are important? When do these important characteristics appear? Which characteristics carry more weight than others? To me, these are the important questions.
Simply, DNA is nothing more than a set of chemical blueprints on how to properly assemble a human. Over time, the fertilized egg and the mother’s body start assembling those blueprints into a fully fledged human. Rather than simply saying, “It’s the blueprint that’s important!” I believe that it is the assembled human parts that are important. This allows me to say that identical twins are two people and a human chimera is one person. To rephrase, if it was just about DNA, two people identical genetic codes would be one person and one body with two genetic codes would be two, and I cannot agree with this. Instead, I say it is about structure (aka development).
140
@128
No, it isn't. It's the MEDICAL definition, and it doesn't just relate to abortion. For example, let's say that a woman who wants to have a baby goes into labor. How do doctors decide whether or not they should try to stop the labor so that the woman will remain pregnant? By whether or not the fetus is VIABLE. A woman who has a 39 week old fetus goes in labor? No problem, the fetus is viable. A woman who is pregnant with a 22 week old fetus goes into labor? Oh, crap, the fetus isn't viable and will die if they don't stop labor!
No, it isn't. It's the MEDICAL definition, and it doesn't just relate to abortion. For example, let's say that a woman who wants to have a baby goes into labor. How do doctors decide whether or not they should try to stop the labor so that the woman will remain pregnant? By whether or not the fetus is VIABLE. A woman who has a 39 week old fetus goes in labor? No problem, the fetus is viable. A woman who is pregnant with a 22 week old fetus goes into labor? Oh, crap, the fetus isn't viable and will die if they don't stop labor!
141
Bottom line — if Roe is overturned, abortion isn't going anywhere. The "back alleys" will be involved, but not like they were in the bad old days. Drug dealers will stop-gap with pharmaceutical abortifacients like mifepristone and ulcer medication, and doctors/nurses will remove what looks like a miscarriage to prevent infection.
Some women's groups will probably bring back the Del-Em, which is about as dangerous as a nasal irrigator. Punchline: this will probably be less expensive than a medical abortion.
Forced birthers will never get what they want, but thanks goodness they aren't applying all this loony energy to a goal they could actually achieve.
Some women's groups will probably bring back the Del-Em, which is about as dangerous as a nasal irrigator. Punchline: this will probably be less expensive than a medical abortion.
Forced birthers will never get what they want, but thanks goodness they aren't applying all this loony energy to a goal they could actually achieve.
142
If anything like this gets north of the border, I will personally recruit every med student, doctor, nurse, midwife, psychologist and whoever else I know to do SOMETHING to keep anything like this from actually taking place.
That said, I doubt that overturning Roe vs Wade would ever go through.
That said, I doubt that overturning Roe vs Wade would ever go through.
144
Will, did you do?
Incidentally, the sovereignty problem, ergo, ectogenesis. Until then, abortion access. Obstruction will continue to be about as effective as terrorism.
Incidentally, the sovereignty problem, ergo, ectogenesis. Until then, abortion access. Obstruction will continue to be about as effective as terrorism.
148
134
They can take our rights,
demand we present papers at airports ...
BUT THEY CAN NEVER TAKE OUR BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
They can take our rights,
demand we present papers at airports ...
BUT THEY CAN NEVER TAKE OUR BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!BOLD!
149
I know i should use google before asking stupid questions, but somehow my brain got tangled in the interwebs contradictory info.
May I ask some kind soul to give me an idiot-proof version of the answer to
the folliwing question:
Prior to Roe, what exactly was the law about abortions in most of USA? All abortion was illegal? Or was it still legal in cases of rape, incest, danger to woman's life or serious danger to her's health ? and how it played out in reality , was it possible to obtain it in a case of rape, etc..?
Thank you in advance.
May I ask some kind soul to give me an idiot-proof version of the answer to
the folliwing question:
Prior to Roe, what exactly was the law about abortions in most of USA? All abortion was illegal? Or was it still legal in cases of rape, incest, danger to woman's life or serious danger to her's health ? and how it played out in reality , was it possible to obtain it in a case of rape, etc..?
Thank you in advance.
150
Regarding post 104: The anti-abortion trolls have literally millions of "They found a baby in a bucket!" stories. They just make them up, or exaggerate a real incident and turn it into a maudlin glurge - sort of like campfire stories for the anti-choice set. Anyone who was raised Catholic (like me!) has heard 'em all a million times.
As far as pre-roe abortions went, women with means had it taken care of, either in a private physicians office (where it was reported as something else), or outside the country. Women without means tried all sorts of things to miscarry, or went to some yokel who "took care of the problem", with all the implications that a non-hygienic environment like that brings with it .
Which is what would happen again if we were to outlaw abortion.
Now, cue the troll who will slither in and post some cliches about dead babies.....
As far as pre-roe abortions went, women with means had it taken care of, either in a private physicians office (where it was reported as something else), or outside the country. Women without means tried all sorts of things to miscarry, or went to some yokel who "took care of the problem", with all the implications that a non-hygienic environment like that brings with it .
Which is what would happen again if we were to outlaw abortion.
Now, cue the troll who will slither in and post some cliches about dead babies.....
151
Catalina @ 150 is right, Alinka, about abortion pre-Roe. It should be added that there were no laws against abortion in the US until 1821, when a law was passed forbidding it, but even then only after the fourth month. Abortion was illegal in most states by 1900. The laws were widely flouted however, and women with money went to Sweden or had procedures in their doctors offices secretly. There was a famous group of women in Chicago, the Jane Collective, who did abortions for women there (they were in the phone book under Jane Doe). In the PNW there was a naturopath in Portland who ran a very high-class clinic for many years (fresh flowers, oriental rugs).
152
I once found myself inside an abortion clinic, seeking their services. Too bad I was smart enough to recognize their lies, and impudent enough to call them on it. I was thrown out for it. I was told that it was a "shapeless clump of cells" that would be "simply removed via vacuume" when I knew it to be at least 4 times as big as they were planning to dilate me to, and to already have limbs. Neither shapeless nor a simple vacuume procedure. I went on to have a beautiful baby girl. Can anyone say roto-rooter? That said, I still believe abortion should be legal. Why? Because it's completely idiotic to compare my now 11 year old daughter to the fetus she once was. She is here now only because *I* ate right and *I* took my vitamins and *I* put in the time, effort, and sacrifice to produce a healthy baby and raise her to be the person she is. The argument that a fetus is the equivalent of the person it *might* be able to become is stupid and really insulting to the folks you use it on. Also, I can see times where someone might, even if they knew the exact truth of what an abortion entailed, all the gruesome details, decide to get an abortion. I believe, as do most people I know, that abortion should be the absolute hardest thing one ever decides to do, a complete last resort. I think it should be a gut-wrenching decision to make. But I think the option should be there. And if I can imagine why I might choose one, there's no way in good conscience I can try to deny anyone else that choice. I wish clinics had stricter guidelines for what constitutes "informed consent" by their patients, but I still think the procedure should be made available. Is a fetus alive? Yes. Is it a person? No. It could become a person, but so could a sperm or an ovum and (hopefully) no one is out to grant them legal standing.
More...
153
@4, What part of "The Delaration of Independence is not part of the United States Constitution" don't you understand?
154
152
Why should abortion be the absolute hardest thing one ever decides to do?
Why should abortion be a complete last resort?
Why should abortion be a gut-wrenching decision to make?
Why any sense of loss or grief?
If it is not a person. Why?
Why should abortion be the absolute hardest thing one ever decides to do?
Why should abortion be a complete last resort?
Why should abortion be a gut-wrenching decision to make?
Why any sense of loss or grief?
If it is not a person. Why?
155
Thank you for the explanations, Catalina and attitude devant, i appreciate it.
Can't believe there are actually people around that so lack empathy, they want the return of those horrific rules....
Can't believe there are actually people around that so lack empathy, they want the return of those horrific rules....
156
d.p. actually the Constitution is based on the premise that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are essential, inalienable rights to all citizens of the United States, and many legal rulings that either confirm or reject the constitutionality of a law are based on this premise.
What Allegedly (@4) fails to acknowledge (in his own very simplistic interpretation of nature) is the ruling of what defines a given thing as a citizen of the United States, a concept known as personhood. According to Allegedly and much of the abortion access obstruction sector, personhood should be arbitrarily decided where they want it, namely at conception. Allegedly, himself will be happy to tell you (in a breach of the Godwin threshold) that personhood is the concept by which Germans justified the slaughter of Jews or Americans, the native tribes‡. His logic being, that if a concept can be used to justify atrocity, it shouldn't be used at all (at which point I could hold up the concepts of God, and sacredness, which, to this day, are used to justify mass atrocity.)
The problem of an arbitrary determination of personhood emerges when it is logically applied to anything else. If they can decide a couple of cells are an American citizen, can I decide my pet cat (who is old enough to vote) is also an American citizen? Can I decide that my computer is, or my corporate identity is? Do they get to vote? Do they get a right to trial before they are dismantled or disbanded? The need for specific parameters becomes clear.
Mike Huckabee insists the determination of human person is (I paraphrase) at the point a new genetic schedule is formed by the impregnation of a male spermatozoon and a female ovum, which, again leads to some interesting complications. Most conceptions end in a natural miscarriage undetected by the mother or pregnancy tests (through failure to implant or stay attached). Were we to salvage all of these natural abortions, our birth rate would quadruple (if not quintuple!). If a viable conception is not saved, who is responsible? What is their crime, and what should their punishment be? Is it medical failure to save a life, manslaughter or murder? When the obstructionists decide we should let go and let God regarding all these implant failures, that levies the question, at what point, then, do we acceptably interfere with natural development? At what point are we obligated to let go? At what point are we obligated to interfere? Let go and let God at its furthest extreme prohibits all medical intervention. Ergo, it's useless for determining personhood.
The United States Supreme Court decided any fetus that is viable (that is to say, any preborn fetus that can survive on life support independent of the mother) has a right to life if (and only if) living extraction is not a threat to the life of the mother, and if the fetus free of anomalies incompatible with life. (And then this, on the contingency that life support is available to be rendered to the fetus, which it isn't in many parts of the nation.) At the moment, viability on life support is approximately near in time to what is (in my opinion) the best scientific answer: cadavers lose personhood when higher brain functions cease, at which point we can legally salvage them for organ transplants (like beating hearts). It would make sense to assume a body gains personhood when these functions begin (around 22-24 weeks gestation). At that point, an otherwise healthy fetus is viable anyway with contemporary technology.
What also surprises me is that the obstructionist sect has no interest in moving the point of viability back by developing the technology to do so. In fact, they are completely disinterested in technological solutions. I hypothesize the majority of obstructionists are more interested in punishing women for being sluts than they are in saving lives. Indeed, unwanted pregnancy, including contraception failures and nonconsensual sex are almost consistently blamed on the pregnant woman in question as lack of responsibility, and sex is frequently compared to crime.
There's also the issue of sovereignty: A woman's body is her own, not the state's, and (assuming a baby can be given up for adoption, and not the more likely outcome of being thrown into foster care) pregnancy takes time and has permanent health effects on a woman, including a significant threat to life just through natural childbirth. Hence, an unborn's occupation of a woman's body without consent is in violation to her rights. While the fetus, depends on the mother, he or she exists at the mother's pleasure. Once this welcome ceases, the fetus' rights are in direct conflict with the mother's, hence his or her right to life becomes questionable.
Seventy five percent of the obstructionist sect are men, and none of them will ever get pregnant.
‡ This is untrue; the Third Reich regarded Jews as human, only subversive ones, and a direct threat to the new German nation. They regarded African Negroids as subhuman, hence not even worth systematic dissolution. Africans were regarded the way you and I regard chimpanzees. Native Americans were regarded as savage humans, but worthy of not only recognition as humankind, but of breeding (and in the case of the French, marrying). Our wholesale slaughter of them was pretty purely a matter of conquest. African Americans, imported to the US as slaves were debated; slave owners liked to regard them as being simple and childlike in intelligence until the matter of the census, by which state representation in federal government was determined, at which point they became fully human. After much deliberation, it was decided that slaves were worth 3/5 of a free man. A woman was still worth zilch, except as livestock.)
More...
What Allegedly (@4) fails to acknowledge (in his own very simplistic interpretation of nature) is the ruling of what defines a given thing as a citizen of the United States, a concept known as personhood. According to Allegedly and much of the abortion access obstruction sector, personhood should be arbitrarily decided where they want it, namely at conception. Allegedly, himself will be happy to tell you (in a breach of the Godwin threshold) that personhood is the concept by which Germans justified the slaughter of Jews or Americans, the native tribes‡. His logic being, that if a concept can be used to justify atrocity, it shouldn't be used at all (at which point I could hold up the concepts of God, and sacredness, which, to this day, are used to justify mass atrocity.)
The problem of an arbitrary determination of personhood emerges when it is logically applied to anything else. If they can decide a couple of cells are an American citizen, can I decide my pet cat (who is old enough to vote) is also an American citizen? Can I decide that my computer is, or my corporate identity is? Do they get to vote? Do they get a right to trial before they are dismantled or disbanded? The need for specific parameters becomes clear.
Mike Huckabee insists the determination of human person is (I paraphrase) at the point a new genetic schedule is formed by the impregnation of a male spermatozoon and a female ovum, which, again leads to some interesting complications. Most conceptions end in a natural miscarriage undetected by the mother or pregnancy tests (through failure to implant or stay attached). Were we to salvage all of these natural abortions, our birth rate would quadruple (if not quintuple!). If a viable conception is not saved, who is responsible? What is their crime, and what should their punishment be? Is it medical failure to save a life, manslaughter or murder? When the obstructionists decide we should let go and let God regarding all these implant failures, that levies the question, at what point, then, do we acceptably interfere with natural development? At what point are we obligated to let go? At what point are we obligated to interfere? Let go and let God at its furthest extreme prohibits all medical intervention. Ergo, it's useless for determining personhood.
The United States Supreme Court decided any fetus that is viable (that is to say, any preborn fetus that can survive on life support independent of the mother) has a right to life if (and only if) living extraction is not a threat to the life of the mother, and if the fetus free of anomalies incompatible with life. (And then this, on the contingency that life support is available to be rendered to the fetus, which it isn't in many parts of the nation.) At the moment, viability on life support is approximately near in time to what is (in my opinion) the best scientific answer: cadavers lose personhood when higher brain functions cease, at which point we can legally salvage them for organ transplants (like beating hearts). It would make sense to assume a body gains personhood when these functions begin (around 22-24 weeks gestation). At that point, an otherwise healthy fetus is viable anyway with contemporary technology.
What also surprises me is that the obstructionist sect has no interest in moving the point of viability back by developing the technology to do so. In fact, they are completely disinterested in technological solutions. I hypothesize the majority of obstructionists are more interested in punishing women for being sluts than they are in saving lives. Indeed, unwanted pregnancy, including contraception failures and nonconsensual sex are almost consistently blamed on the pregnant woman in question as lack of responsibility, and sex is frequently compared to crime.
There's also the issue of sovereignty: A woman's body is her own, not the state's, and (assuming a baby can be given up for adoption, and not the more likely outcome of being thrown into foster care) pregnancy takes time and has permanent health effects on a woman, including a significant threat to life just through natural childbirth. Hence, an unborn's occupation of a woman's body without consent is in violation to her rights. While the fetus, depends on the mother, he or she exists at the mother's pleasure. Once this welcome ceases, the fetus' rights are in direct conflict with the mother's, hence his or her right to life becomes questionable.
Seventy five percent of the obstructionist sect are men, and none of them will ever get pregnant.
‡ This is untrue; the Third Reich regarded Jews as human, only subversive ones, and a direct threat to the new German nation. They regarded African Negroids as subhuman, hence not even worth systematic dissolution. Africans were regarded the way you and I regard chimpanzees. Native Americans were regarded as savage humans, but worthy of not only recognition as humankind, but of breeding (and in the case of the French, marrying). Our wholesale slaughter of them was pretty purely a matter of conquest. African Americans, imported to the US as slaves were debated; slave owners liked to regard them as being simple and childlike in intelligence until the matter of the census, by which state representation in federal government was determined, at which point they became fully human. After much deliberation, it was decided that slaves were worth 3/5 of a free man. A woman was still worth zilch, except as livestock.)
157
It can be the hardest decision you ever make, or it can be as easy as selecting a tint of nail polish.
Either way, it should still be totally legal and easily accessible. And unless it's you making the decision, it's none of your damn business.
Either way, it should still be totally legal and easily accessible. And unless it's you making the decision, it's none of your damn business.
158
156
"Personhood" is a moving target.
Blacks were once explicitly denied rights by our Constitution. That has changed.
The personhood of the very young, likewise, will soon become recognized and protected.
"Personhood" is a moving target.
Blacks were once explicitly denied rights by our Constitution. That has changed.
The personhood of the very young, likewise, will soon become recognized and protected.
159
Not that you specifically care, Allegedly, but in Mosaic law a family was not allowed to grieve, name or hold a funeral for an infant until he or she was thirty days old, placing the Hebrew moment of personhood thirty days after birth. That there's a rule indicates there was a problem.
In fact people grieve potentials all the time, including children that weren't conceived, let alone those that had to be let go before they were children. In fact, some of the saddest tales ever are late term abortion cases, in all of which the mothers wanted the child, but only for a fetal anomaly incompatible with life.
These are the patients Dr. Tiller served. You know, Allegedly, the guy gunned down in church by your man Roeder?
In fact people grieve potentials all the time, including children that weren't conceived, let alone those that had to be let go before they were children. In fact, some of the saddest tales ever are late term abortion cases, in all of which the mothers wanted the child, but only for a fetal anomaly incompatible with life.
These are the patients Dr. Tiller served. You know, Allegedly, the guy gunned down in church by your man Roeder?
160
As were women, Allegedly, but you never seem to care for shit about those people.
Personhood according the the US has done nothing but expand. I assume that trend will continue, though I hope not in the directions you want (e.g. in violation of the rights of the living).
Personhood according the the US has done nothing but expand. I assume that trend will continue, though I hope not in the directions you want (e.g. in violation of the rights of the living).
161
159
You are right.
I have no interest in seeing Mosaic, or any other religious creed's teachings, influence US law.
You are right.
I have no interest in seeing Mosaic, or any other religious creed's teachings, influence US law.
163
This kind of legislation says so much about religious conservatives. Abortion is about their failed morality and weakness. They cannot accept the wrongs that they have perpetuated and are wusses when it comes to dealing with valid human rights issues. Going after abortion, along with gay rights, is their way of trying to gain some moral high ground while avoiding the reality of what cowards they are. Basically they can't accept responsibility for their short comings so they go after the girls and the gays.
165
164
You err in your assumption.
You do realize that all assumption starts with an Ass, don't you?
(yes, I used that yesterday but it's really good...)
I believe, and said at the time, that Roeder should face the law and receive its penalty.
He broke the law.
Some immoral behaviors are legal.
Some moral behaviors are illegal.
We may try to change laws we disagree with but are bound to obey them until and unless they can be changed.
You err in your assumption.
You do realize that all assumption starts with an Ass, don't you?
(yes, I used that yesterday but it's really good...)
I believe, and said at the time, that Roeder should face the law and receive its penalty.
He broke the law.
Some immoral behaviors are legal.
Some moral behaviors are illegal.
We may try to change laws we disagree with but are bound to obey them until and unless they can be changed.
166
@Catalina — Brazil's restrictive antiabortion laws have led to chemically induced abortions, with far better results than one might expect. Birth defects when abortifacients do fail and lethal responses to the medication do occur, but it's nothing like the horrific infections and trauma described by pre-Roe gynecologists.
I agree with you that "antiabortion policies have hurt women and will again" *should* be a powerful, successful argument... but it isn't. So I'm not arguing with you, but I do contend that choice supporters start using a "forced birthers will never, ever win because they are incapable of winning" angle.
These people don't care what women want or what happens to us if we don't do what they believe we should do, and I'm tired of playing on our vulnerability. Women will always find a way to control our fertility, and we have more options/power than we did several decades ago.
I agree with you that "antiabortion policies have hurt women and will again" *should* be a powerful, successful argument... but it isn't. So I'm not arguing with you, but I do contend that choice supporters start using a "forced birthers will never, ever win because they are incapable of winning" angle.
These people don't care what women want or what happens to us if we don't do what they believe we should do, and I'm tired of playing on our vulnerability. Women will always find a way to control our fertility, and we have more options/power than we did several decades ago.
167
161, aka Allegedly
If you are not religious, why are you insisting that something like this (sfw):
http://mdavis.drizzlehosting.com/uploade…
Is a person? It has no brain, no mind. Why should the 20~50% chance of a mind developing in the future be protected at the cost of the hosts freedom and health?
Why is it worth more protection then a sperm?
If you are not religious, why are you insisting that something like this (sfw):
http://mdavis.drizzlehosting.com/uploade…
Is a person? It has no brain, no mind. Why should the 20~50% chance of a mind developing in the future be protected at the cost of the hosts freedom and health?
Why is it worth more protection then a sperm?
168
@165: Once upon a time, long ago, pine cones, little tufts of hair left over on a hairbrush and very small rocks were not considered people. But just as we've seen in other cases, sometimes people change their minds. It's an ongoing struggle, but one day it will be illegal to throw pine cones into the compost or to clean out your hairbrush, and we'll look back on this era as a dark time indeed.
169
When we have the ability to clone from specs of genetic material in hair follicles, spittle and bits of skin, watch out! Then everything might have a right to life.
170
I always wonder what the clump-of-cells = life! people make out of tumor lines.
For those not in the know, thee are cultures of cancer cells (stolen) from terminal patients by the biomed industry to be used in lab studies. The most famous and oldest is the HeLa line. The weird thing is that these damn things, each a unique blend of DNA, are pretty much immortal, as long as they get their nutrient broth that allows them to keep dividing and growing.
So, is this "life?" Does it deserve support and protection? If not, why not?
For those not in the know, thee are cultures of cancer cells (stolen) from terminal patients by the biomed industry to be used in lab studies. The most famous and oldest is the HeLa line. The weird thing is that these damn things, each a unique blend of DNA, are pretty much immortal, as long as they get their nutrient broth that allows them to keep dividing and growing.
So, is this "life?" Does it deserve support and protection? If not, why not?
171
170
If it gets its broth, support and protection will it grow up to be a person, doctor?
There is a differece between a human life and living human tissue.
(that probably wasn't covered in Abortionist School...)
If it gets its broth, support and protection will it grow up to be a person, doctor?
There is a differece between a human life and living human tissue.
(that probably wasn't covered in Abortionist School...)
172
@171: I'm going to go ahead and guess that Biology wasn't covered at all in your home-schooling. You clearly don't know the first thing about it.
173
#171 Yes, that is correct. An embryo is a developing human life form in a strict biological sense, but it is not a person. And no one needs to allow it to become one. Thank you for helping to clarify this very important point.
176
@175 - Fortunately for everyone, you don't get to define measures of biological sense. Or maybe you do, because no biologist would know what the hell you meant by that.
You're entitled to your opinion, which I can't control. But you definitely don't get to define who deserves life, and you can't force anyone to gestate it. You can rage, weep, and type your ickle fingers off, but you can't stop abortion.
Recognizing that, I suggest more volunteerism/charitable acts and less trollage for all involved.
You're entitled to your opinion, which I can't control. But you definitely don't get to define who deserves life, and you can't force anyone to gestate it. You can rage, weep, and type your ickle fingers off, but you can't stop abortion.
Recognizing that, I suggest more volunteerism/charitable acts and less trollage for all involved.
178
To any one who has waded through all the commentary here, I would like to clear up at least one flat out false statement in this story. Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the US and the largest financial beneficiary, claims there is not link between breast cancer and abortion. They cite a Cancer Society article which denies the connection by citing a lot of older studies done at at time when triple negative breast cancer was unknown.
http://www.fightpink.org/fight-pink-head…
This type does not respond to treatment and has a high mortality rate.
Click here to read directly from a 2009 study from Fred Hutchinson, and National Cancer Institute researchers that clearly and unequivocally establishes a link between breast cancer and abortion.
http://www.jillstanek.com/Abortion%20Bre…
You will have to do a little reading here if you really want to get the TRUTH and not depend on what a financial beneficiary has to say. Too often it is "dont bother me with the facts, my mind is made up". Even if you favor abortion, cant you see the bias here?
http://www.fightpink.org/fight-pink-head…
This type does not respond to treatment and has a high mortality rate.
Click here to read directly from a 2009 study from Fred Hutchinson, and National Cancer Institute researchers that clearly and unequivocally establishes a link between breast cancer and abortion.
http://www.jillstanek.com/Abortion%20Bre…
You will have to do a little reading here if you really want to get the TRUTH and not depend on what a financial beneficiary has to say. Too often it is "dont bother me with the facts, my mind is made up". Even if you favor abortion, cant you see the bias here?
179
Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the US and the largest financial beneficiary from the slaughter of 900,000 babies a year.
Blacks are 16% of the population but receive 40% of abortions.
Blacks are 16% of the population but receive 40% of abortions.
180
You want to condemn something? Condemn the war. We have enough radicals across the sea to have to put up with the same ignorant "My god told me.." listen, I don't think god cares, honestly. Abortions are wonderful, there are some people that shouldn't have kids. Why force them to. Are we really going to bring this back to a back ally hanger country? No one bitches about cancer treatment being against gods will. How is taking away a life one? You're all very close-minded and hypocritical. "Fasting and praying." Seriously, what is wrong with these idiots? If i saw someone fasting and praying outside of an abortion clinic I think Id be more compelled to not want to join their side. Fucking loonies!
181
You guys are all losing sight of what really is the issue. This subject has more do do with people being caught up over what people think "is their god given right!" not whether it's right.... Or wrong. Like having 3-4 kids.... It's your ight to have as many as you want.... But is it right? Population growth is rising to alarming numbers compared to resources available...and it's growing exponentially every year. It's your god given right to invent a plastic Swiffer to make Americans more lazy... But is it right to waste resources and fill landfills with something totally unneccesary to daily life? Your ford explored gets 10 miles to the gallon... It's your right... But is when it's only got your 3-4 kids in it twice a day? Think of the rape victim ( I've read the article a few times) that kept her child... He grew up to be a PHD holding grad... AndS he can't imagine not having him.... It was her right to an abortion, she was a rape victim!!!.... But was it right? She decided it wasn't right. I only agree that abortions are part of a personal responsibility problem Americans are teaching Young Americans. It's ok to lie.. Look Obama does it... It's ok to have sex... Look at the TV.... It's ok... Your bored? Turn on the TV.... And sit down. Your obese? Severly overweight? It's ok.... Liposuction... No hard work involved just keep eating like crap.... Americans have forgot what consequences of actions are anymore. Is abortion wrong???? I have a biased opinion.... My dad wanted my mom to have one.... Obviously I'm here... Because my mom thought it was wrong. And she suffered.... And I suffered..... But that's what life is.... Suffering.... Because without the truly bad.... The truly challenging.... How do you know how lucky you are? To have something as simple as life? Or something to be proud of.... Without the bad.... How can you know the good? It starts with teaching our kids values and morals.... Instead of preaching crap and letting them be raised by cartoons and racy movies. ( which I enjoy :) ) so to every woman..... Is it right? If you can be so selfish as to say it is..... Then whether you believe in god, karma, or anything at all.... Your life ain't going no where but down.
Jerid
age 25
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Jerid
age 25
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