Forum Post: A modest proposal on the 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 22, 2012, 6:27 p.m. EST by BonTon
(57)
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Roe v. Wade (1/22/73) found a "right to abortion" in the US Constitution and denied the states or federal government the power to restrict abortion except after the 1st trimester and then only with vague mandatory exceptions for the "health" of the mother.
OWS (NYCGA) in its Declaration condemns corporations that "have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals," but is silent about the abortion industry, which profits off the torture and death of unborn (and sometimes born or partly born) human beings.
OWS (NYCGA) in it Principles of Solidarity supports personal and collective responsibility and "empowering one another against all forms of oppression."
OWS fails to acknowledge the oppression and violence of abortion and its effects on mothers, fathers and the unborn.
OWS fails to acknowledge the societal structures and pressures that force women to make the false "choice" to abort.
OWS fails to condemn the abortion industry, which profits off the misery of women and children.
OWS should stand in solidarity with the pro-life movement in supporting non-violent, pro-woman, pro-child alternatives to the tragedy of abortion.
I've been alive for a fairly good while. I lived in the pre-abortion era. I know of the lengths some women would go to keep from having a baby. I lived in a time when there was a social stigma attached to having a child out of wedlock as well as being a child born out of wedlock. I know about the back alley abortion methods that were used in the old days - the brutal, awful things that occured - for the sake of avoiding social stigma.
Make it against the law to scorn, shun and even abuse unwed mothers and I'll get on the pro-life band wagon. Make killing people in the name of oil or religion illegal with a manditory life sentence and I'll be at the pro-life rally tomorrow. Figure out a way to prevent child abuse, rape and incest and I'm on the team and right now! Rid us of the hypocricy of how we deal in killing anyone.
go ahead - murder your offspring - see what I care.
Conservatives, pounding the table for "freedom", will be the first to deny it to you. Hypocrisy abounds ...
PseudoRads, pounding the table for non-violence, respect and an end to oppression, will be the first to support violence against the unborn, without a flicker of concern. Hypocrisy (and shallow thinking) abounds...
President Carter had one of the most cogent discussions of abortion in one of his books: namely, that we should strive to eliminate abortions but also need to insure that we care for the children who DO come into our world.
It is totally inhuman to cut spending for birth control, aid to poor families, and funding for children's programs and eduction ... but require poor women to bear children they cannot afford to raise.
[Removed]
I've read this entire thread and so far the only one to make sense is Lardhead. Ironic.
Are you sure you read English?
I favor choice - let the fetus choose.
I usually stay out of this argument, being a man and all, but that has got to be the dumbest statement I've ever heard. Keep coming back though, maybe some day you will gain the chops needed to win an argument.
Ad hominem arguments never win, except in the mind of the debater. They show a complete lack of evidence to support an argument.
Evidence? My evidence is listening to twenty first century economic theory. "Labor being a commodity" is the theory I rest my case on. Also, What the right chooses as a remedy, adoption, is just commodity trading, in the book of the america capitalist, So abortion is just speculation, lol. You free market pigs have to learn some day that you can't have your cake and eat it too. Righties are all concerned about the fetus, but once it is in the world you could care less.
Wow. Your last sentence is powerfully stupid.
And you sound like a child. I'm just keeping it real. That's right you probably want to open an abortion franchise, that's about as much caring as you intend to do. ALways caring to the business of America, And that business is business. lOL. Good morning BonTon. How is your fine morning?.
@JesseHeffran: That's it, keep it stupid, dude. The corollary of "Righties are all concerned about the fetus, but once it is in the world you could care less" is "Lefties love dead fetuses, especially when it's the underclass (read: blacks and hispanics) getting the abortions."
And you see no correlation between poverty and minority? You, my friend, are living in a fantasy land. If you believe that abortion is genocide and not desperation, we are totally on different worlds, or at least different nations.
@JesseHeffran - I gave you the corollary to your "powerful" generalization. You seem to have missed the point.
So then you are saying that the democrats are the reason why they are in poverty? How so? though the democrats are not championing for universal health care or minimum wage increases, so I guess both parties are leading the poor to desperation.
@JH, you're a little dense. Let me spell it out. I didn't make the statement; I gave it you as a good match for your powerfully stupid statement. It's as true as yours.
I see, but I raised you an answer by saying the American Political parties are leading the poor to desperation. What you say to that?
That's another nice sounding platitude. I don't know what it means. Dems and Reps are "leading the poor"? To desperation? About...?
I've no doubt that poverty makes people desperate about fulfilling their basic everyday needs. And as someone memorably once said, the poor will always be with us. But I rather doubt that parties are "leading the poor to desperation" or that the poor know or care about the parties.
You would eliminate food stamps, right BonTon? That's all I'm thinking here. You probably don't like Head Start, things like that, that help people, and in particular, children, once they are here.
@beautifulworld, you come off as a presumptuous twit, which I know can't be your intent. I don't want to eliminate food stamps, and where did I ever write anything remotely like that? I want fewer people on food stamps. Don't you?
You're funny. I don't care what you think of me. So, what about Head Start? Are you for that? Are you for healthcare for pregnant women who don't have insurance? Are your for the parents of these children making enough money on their jobs to live decently. Things like that. I'm curious.
@bw - You're good at asking questions and changing the subject, not so good at answering questions. I'm for women and children getting care and food; I'm suspicious of massive, one-size-fits-all federal programs like Head Start because they're money pits that don't appear to work. Even the liberal media is acknowledging that little secret. http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2081778,00.html And I'm totally against SebeliusObamaCare.
Oh. Sorry, I thought you joked with me about eliminating food stamps in another thread. My bad. I can't keep you guys straight in my mind anymore and it is hard to go back and find the threads where the comments are. My apologies. I get your point about HeadStart as a program, but poor kids do need intervention at an early age. And, where does the pregnant woman get her healthcare to ensure that the fetus is cared for and then cared for after birth?
@BW, you're a presumption machine. "you guys"?? Don't know who you mean. Don't think you know either.
But nice to see that you've reconsidered your position re Head Start, which above you called a program "that helps people, and in particular, children, once they are here." No evidence of that, unfortunately.
"where does the pregnant woman get her healthcare to ensure that the fetus is cared for and then cared for after birth?"
First, why don't you drop the dehumanizing fetus-talk and acknowledge it's a baby after birth? Second, I don't know who "the pregnant woman" is that you're referring to, but most would be covered by private insurance or Medicaid.
What a way to reply to someone who apologized to your for something so trivial.
@beautifulw:I didn't reject your apology, but it was couched in yet another sweeping presumption, as well as the careless language that infuses abortion discussions (insistence by some on using terms like 'fetus' ad absurdum). No need to get huffy.
You are the huffy one. I did not use the term fetus with the intention you presume on me.
Wow. Your last sentence is powerful.
Your assumption about my political orientation is wrong. The statement "So abortion is just speculation" Can you expand on this, it makes no sense.
First of all I'm not Judging you I'm taking part in a national dialog. And as to speculation, go talk to one of your right wing politicians, they will tell you what i'm talking about. I have to go to work now, and I don't have the patience to explain the simplest of economic theory to those who are too consumed with their selves to take the time to learn about the world around them. Peace, I'm out of here.
People shouldn't take their mistakes out on the unborn. How cruel can people be?
What would you say to the mother? You have to introduce your only child to a world so you can atone for your mistakes. Even if she thinks the States are loosing its collective humanity further down the free market, Utopian rabbit hole they go, she is suppose to bare her child But the sad part is that I believe most Righties just want more cheap labor not atonement of the women and life of the child . And some of you are just delusional it may seem (or smarter than a Fox.) But i for some reason seem to think that the choice that an expecting mother chooses is a legit one for the family to make on their own. This is a Conservative/libertarian idea that I subscribe to. And if you are so worried about people atoning for their mistakes, you should know, most women, so I've heard, have psychological problems as a consequence for their choice. Everyone should have a right to choose in social issues when it deals with family and is non violent to one another. Now when it deals in business, being two or more people colluding for the so purpose of hustling a third party, I believe there should be a police man there to intervene, while at the same time we the people should be able to effect the tax code to pay for the regulator and to redistribute the life blood of the economy. IF the top would stop buying the government they would not be the one percent, duh. This feels like european style feudalism encroaching on our shores. Now, I've often heard that this seems two faced. But i have yet heard a good argument for allowing the free hand of the market to decide law for the governed and their industry. Seems a little feudal and backwards to me. also it seems like a good way for a back door conquest. just a thought. You are more than welcome to check my behavior against yours, and refute my perspective with your narrative.
It is the fetus' life, who has more right to choose?
The fetus chooses to live. You think maybe it chooses to have forceps stabbed into the base of its skull?
That is a simplistic answer considering the fetus does not have a voice. The mother on the other hand, has lived her whole life in this dog eat dog world and would be the most logical person to decide if the world deserves her seed or not. If you are so worried about the life of the child then maybe you should take better care of the mother. Society chooses to make humanity a commodity; therefore, the mother is just playing by the rules that society creates.
A voice is not required to choose. Only action. The question was "who has more right to choose?"
What a very OWS copout. Blame a "dog eat dog world" and "society's rules." Give me a break. Individuals make decisions and are responsible for their decisions, right? Maybe you should take better care of the mother, eh, instead of blaming a non-entity - "society".
So when the individual chooses to abort, you should take your own advice and zip it.
Oh, what we gots here's a libertarian. And an incivil one, at that. OTOH, my "own advice" is not libertarian. I don't worship at the altar of individual choice, as do you. I believe in community and in inalienable God-given rights. Love the mother, love the baby. I believe in working on changing that society that you so despise.
But I bet you a hundered bucks you vote Republican, me on the other hand have chosen to hang my hat with the Democrats. I wish we lived in a society where Abortion does not seem like a rational answer but that is just dreaming for a utopia. Besides I do believe that social issues are not my jurisdiction, and they should not be yours either. But, there too i'm just dreaming and I know it. What's your excuse? Also, why you keep saying you know what OWS is? If you do know, tell me because i don't even know, Are you sure you are not projecting. Also, If you don't know that economic issues are the only social issues that count, you are not living in the same America as I do? Also, If you are so worried about the deterioration of the nation, maybe we should stop considering ourselves, consumers, producers, Christians, lazy, Utopian dreamers or sinners, and refer to one another as brothers, humans or those ones with funny beliefs. Anything is better than sacrilegious heretics. Just a thought. Know let's get down to some real thinking. What do you think would fix the Abortion problem. Everyone pray to god? Or that we monkie with the tax schedule? Having no opportunities doing the things that we would love at a rate that is livable, is the greatest deterrent to planned pregnancy That I can think of? But yes, you are right, it is just a choice,her choice. See, my libertarian view is tword the individual's choice. WHen I think of the worlds problems, I think of two or more people gaining up on one person, Or a majority of people being taken to the cleaners by the one's with the money and influence. The majority of people are enslaved to the desires of the few. This rings, economics, and is where my libertarianism in me, becomes a socialist. You arrest gangs when they defend their rights, and reward banks when they legalize. How a group interacts for a profit seems to be more of a social problem than whether an individual makes a conscious choice. Well, I'm glad you allowed me to vent, and I hope you now understand my logic. And if you don't, where is your community, and how do I get there? Also, I really feel bad for the Iraqi's and our soldiers, but that too, was a choice. I believe It was up there with an Abortion, but worst.
@JesseHeffran - Why are you editing and lengthening your posts long after I've already replied? You're wasting my time, wordy.
WOW, you must be one of those Americans I heard of that have a low attention span, though I thought you were just a myth. Good day, BonTon.
OWS is all about utopia, so I don't get your reluctance. You don't do social issues? Gee, that doesn't leave much. I guess you must have strong opinions on defense, but, you know, to Iraqis, that's a social issue too.
Working in those gallows sure was monotonous and unrewarding. Too bad the pay does not allow me to even contemplate having children, I wonder if this is what goes through the girl's mind when she sits in the abortion clinic contemplating life and death of her procreation, Could it be that simple, or is it just her fault for having made the wrong decisions.Who knows, luckily as a man I won't have to make that decision, but when I do choose to procreate I'll be sure to use a rubber. Also, you don't expect me to have children making eight dollars an hour and no health insurance, do you? That would just mean I'd be a MOOCH. NO? Also, why you keep saying you know what OWS is? If you do know, tell me because i don't even know, Are you sure you are not projecting. Also, If you don't know that economic issues are the only social issues that count, you are not living in the same America as I do? Also, If you are so worried about the deterioration of the nation, maybe we should stop considering ourselves, consumers, producers, Christians, lazy, Utopian dreamers or sinners, and refer to one another as brothers, humans or those ones with funny beliefs. Anything is better than sacrilegious heretics. Just a thought...
Now, let's get down to some real thinking. What do you think would fix the Abortion problem? Everyone make the government enforce what god commands, Or that we tinker with the tax schedule? because this is a either or for our nation, I choose economics, I believe we have been trying that praying for some time now, What say you? Should we now try the other? Having no opportunities doing the things that we would love at a rate that is livable, is the greatest deterrent to planned pregnancy that I can think of? But yes, you are right, it is just a choice,her choice. See, my libertarian view is toward the individual's choice. When I think of the world's problems, I think of two or more people gaining up on one person, Or a majority of people being taken to the cleaners by the one's with the money and influence. The majority of people are enslaved to the desires of the few. This rings, economics, and is where the libertarianism in me becomes a socialist. You arrest gangs when they defend their rights, and reward banks when they legalize theft. How a group interacts for a profit seems to be more of a social problem than whether an individual makes a conscious choice. Well, I'm glad you allowed me to vent, and I hope you now understand my logic. And if you don't, where is your community, and how do I get there? Also, I really feel bad for the Iraqis and our soldiers, but that too, was a choice. I believe It was up there with an Abortion, but worst.
@JesseHeffran, be more concise, you goof
That sounds like a personal problem. But I do pride my self on being a goof. I don't think I could get anymore precise though.
You sir advocate murder. Your voice is a meaningless drone.
Why does she allow a dick in her pussy if she does not believe the world " deserves her seed"? Your thinking is seriously retarded.
Kirby, I assume you are a man. Come back in your next life as a woman and then discuss this issue.
Reincarnation is a figment of your imagination. Answer the question.
I knew you would say that. I dislike the way you posed the question, but I do think there is a place for any child on this earth. As a man, though, you have no idea what women go through, and because I do, I wouldn't want to tell someone else what to do.
Sweetheart, I have had my children murdered. I had no say. The scars are mine as well as hers. Although hers, I think go much deeper. She has no peace.
I'm so sorry. That really sucks. You've had a rough life, Kirby. I definitely think men should have an equal say, I really do. It is as much their child as the woman's. What I meant is that guys have sex and walk away. Women have to wait around and worry.
I know what you are saying. I do. I'm sorry I come off as an asshole so often. Your post are always thoughtful and I respect you.
It's okay. We wouldn't have had this discussion had your post not been so crass, right? I wouldn't have commented to you. You have broken my heart, though. I feel so bad. I love my kids so much. Do you have any other children?
Yes. Two sons. The youngest is in college and he is a great kid. The oldest is 26 and he's a sweetie too. God bless your kids, and you too. They have a mom who has a heart of gold, I can see that. Btw, how about yours?
That's great. And, I'm sure you're nothing at home like you are here. JK!
Thanks beautiful. Your name is a good fit!
"her seed"?? Where'd you just come from, Mesopotamia circa 1500 BC?
it is what it is, dog. And what is wrong with my word? Should I have called it her property? Would that have made more sense to your American 21 st century mind.
fetus, embryo, conceptus, baby, child, human being.
She's not a plant, dog. It's not a weed, cat. It's a human being, and you started out the same way.
But it is okay to call a laborer a commodity. http://occupywallst.org/forum/a-modest-proposal-on-the-29th-anniversary-of-roe-v/#comment-609324
@JesseHeffran, you spew a lot of hate. calling human beings "pigs" and "seeds". I hope you get over some obviously deep resentments that probably manifest themselves in your life in unhealthy fashions.
Wow, I do love a hypocrite. I am not using the words I choose, but the words that dictate twenty first century economic thought. It is what it is, and to be honest I love my life and the people I choose to socialize with. I just hate the words of hypocrites, But that don't mean I hate humanity.
another copout. "the words that dictate 21st century economic thought"? more like the words dictated by OWS half-baked thought. Defend yourself without blaming society for a change.
Let the fetus choose.
It's absurd what people are capable of and what the US has been doing for years. Take this article below, that explains how North Carolina decided to sterilize a teenager who was raped because she was declared 'feeble-minded'. The woman didn't even find out she was butchered until she was 19 and couldn't conceive a child with her husband.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-forced-sterilization-20120126,0,2398463.story
Agreed, IslandActivist. It's barbaric.
The state that I'm from recently had some absolutely disgusting and sickening things happen to babies and young children. At a rate of what seemed to like once a week there was a story in the news about a young mother killing her infant baby, or a young father beating a young toddler to death because the child wouldn't stop crying. Bodies were found in dumpsters, toilets and dumps. These things were perpetrated on innocent babies by parents who obviously couldn't deal with the realities of parenthood. What about those children's "rights?" People having babies who absolutely do it for all of the wrong reasons. Then they decide that it's too inconvenient to be responsible for a baby and then what? Chloroform it and drown it in the family pool! Why isn't an adoption agency in the equation? Parental pressure? Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Wake the hell up!
EDIT: The young father to whom I refered above? It wasn't a toddler he beat to death. It was a TWENTY DAY OLD INFANT!!
Amen, TN. There's a shocking disrespect for life at all levels and ages, throughout society. And there are many reasons for it. But your state also had a particularly shocking abortion clinic. One wonders how the level of clinic regulation that results in this horrorshow can be defended or how this constitutes "safe, legal and rare":
http://articles.philly.com/2011-01-20/news/27038788_1_grand-jury-abortion-clinic-patient-areas
We are presented with some very, very difficult choices by the questions posed in the thread. Impossible choices. So we're forced to opt for the lesser of two evils?
"Would you prefer to die by lethal self-injection or hooking yourself up to the tailpipe?" "Wait! What?! Who said anything about my commiting suicide? Why do I have to die? Why do I have to choose?"
"Because it's the nature of your reality, my child. Now choose!"
Coming at this dilemma from another perspective - Marines urinate on the bodies of the enemy combatants they've killed. You know the history of abuses done by the enemy to our soldiers and tour fellow citizens. You know the history of waterboarding, electric shock and other forms of torture used on enemy combatant detainees. You know that your country has broken with an agreement that deals with how enemy combatants are to be treated. That agreement is part and parcel to the standard of conduct your nation has aspired to. Here's the question:
Is your sense of outrage about what was done to your country so great so that you're willing (even if reluctantly) to sacrifice your ideals (and therefore include toleration of the actions of those Marines) in order to perhaps more quickly defeat your enemy. Your decision could save lives - on both sides. Or are your ideals so engrained into your vision of your nation's identity that you aren't willing (even if reluctantly) to sacrifice your ideals.
Just food for thought. I'm not trying to highjack the thread. :-)
This world is a fucked up place. I like your moniker on a less violent note though.
It would in a much better world. I'm glad that there are others who care about others and think and act to make it better for all. I understand that there are a great many high stress issues facing all of us and I understand how that stress can affect our perceptions of things and events. We, each of us, need time to process things that are so stress inducing. I want to get Bill Moyers' new book "Time To Think" because he writes about the effects of the 24 hour news cycle on people. We have sooo much coming at us sooo rapidly and unendingly it seems. I TRY to keep from "losing it" when horrible things happen that are in the news, but I'm not always successful at doing so. This thread is a prime example of my lashing out that happens occasionally to me.
Thanks for your kind complement, Kirby. "We have got to get it together, now!"
THIS IS THE LAW:
ABORTION IS A CIVIL AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT SUPPORTED BY THE RIGHTS TO PRIVACY, THE EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE OF THE 14TH AMENDMENT, AND THE 13TH AMENDMENT.
NO HUMAN has a right to life or any due process rights by the 14th amendment to use another human's body or body parts AGAINST their will, civil and constitutional rights: that's why you are not forced to donate your kidney---the human fetus is no exception; this is supported by the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, which makes reproductive slavery unconstitutional.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Protection_Clause
consensual sex=/= a legal, binding contract to an unwanted fetus to live.
FYI, for those who may not be totally "up to speed", if you will:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5029934
THIS IS SCIENCE:
FETUS IS NOT A BABY (GOOGLE THE HUMAN DEVELOPMENT CHART), but a parasite because the classification of the biological relationship that is based on the behavior one organism (fetus) and how it relates to the woman's body.
as a zygote, it invaded the woman's uterus using its TROPHOBLAST cells, hijacked her immune system by using NEUROKININ B and HCG--- so her body doesn't kill it, steals her nutrients to survive, and causes her harm or potential death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophoblast
"The placenta functions as an immunological barrier between the mother and the fetus, creating an immunologically privileged site. For this purpose, it uses several mechanisms: It secretes Neurokinin B containing phosphocholine molecules. This is the same mechanism used by parasitic nematodes to avoid detection by the immune system of their host.[2]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immune_tolerance_in_pregnancy
"Progesterone enriches the uterus with a thick lining of blood vessels and capillaries so that it can sustain the growing fetus. Due to its highly-negative charge, hCG may repel the immune cells of the mother, protecting the fetus during the first trimester. It has also been hypothesized that hCG may be a placental link for the development of local maternal immunotolerance." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chorionic_gonadotropin
"It is also possible for a symbiotic relationship to exist between two organisms of the same species." http://www.answers.com/topic/symbiosis -- Gale's Science of Everyday Things.
just like a parasitic twin --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_twin
"an animal or plant that lives in or on another (the host) from which it obtains nourishment. The host does not benefit from the association and is often harmed by it" http://www.thefreedictionary.com/parasite
pregnancy CAUSES HARM: http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/004.htm
since a man can kill his tapeworm at anytime-- so should a woman abort unwanted, human-parasitic fetus, too.
so i will kill any unwanted, parasitic life-form that needs my body to survive-- including your precious fetus; not your body carrying the parasite, not your problem nor your concern...get over it.
You are a sick person. You need to get help.
Very sick and sadistic. Please get help and refrain yourself.
We live in a world where millions of children starve to death each day. Why not turn our compassion towards the living, if we have such a high regard for the unborn? There are millions of homeless people in America, who suffer and die every day. It seems to me that a lot of people only care about life between conception and birth. After a person is born they cease to give a damn what becomes of them.
That's an old canard thrown at any one who dares question abortion.
anyway, why is it an either/or, rather than a both/and?
Does saying it's an "old canard" make it wrong? You don't address the question here, but rather deflect it.
It seems to me that we should go about trying to ease the suffering and premature death of the living multitudes, and yet I never hear the people who are opposed to abortion address that issue at all, and that issue seems to be pretty cut and dried whereas abortion is much more complicated.
Firstly, there are all kinds of circumstances in which a woman would clearly not want to give birth to a child. There are issues of rape and incest, for example. There are issues of the mothers possibly not surviving a full term pregnancy. In this latter case It seems "social conservatives" have more concern for the unborn baby than the woman herself, and this gets us to the real issue, and it seems to me that that is the desire to outlaw abortion is not so much a matter of a view that life is sacred, as much as it is a matter of Misogyny.
yes, it's an old canard and it's wrong.
Are you saying you've never heard of anyone advocating respect for life from conception to natural death and also addressing other suffering, such as opposing capital punishment, advocating respect for immigrants (legal or illegal), opposing the Iraq war, etc?
I've heard of it, but it seems to me that the social conservative agenda doesn't bare it out. I'm sure there are many anti-abortionists who are sincere in their belief that all life is holy, but if they took that stand more generally, I think they would be granted a lot more respect. I happen to know from expierence that the pro-life stance is often taken as a guise for "putting women back in their place," and I have no respect for that view at all.
You're still pursuing "either/or," as if you can't support both animal and human life, oppose abortion and capital punishment, etc.
And instead of blaming "social conservatives" for this paradigm, ask why OWS isn't breaking it.
I'm sorry, I'm not blameing anyone. My goal here is merely to try to dig up the truth if possible, and see if there isn't any way of finding common ground. The problem is simply that people in this country see the world through such different lenses that common ground often seems unattainable. I certainly do believe that there are a lot of people who come to the pro-life position through the highest motives, but it seems to me there is so much work to be done for human advancement in less controversial waters that it would be better to focus on the humanitarian goals we can agree upon.
Medical science has agreed that death occurs at the time brain activity ceases, even if the body is breathing and all automatic functions continue, there is still death in the event of cessation of brain activity.
Fetal brain activity can begin as early as 28 weeks, by week 36 of the gestational cycle, it has definitely begun.
If we, via medical science, ascertain that the cessation of brainwave activity signifies death, we should be able to accept that there is no 'life' prior to the beginning of brain activity.
Is this true? As far as I know, it's not legal to unplug such a patient unless the family agrees. If he were truly considered dead, there would be no problem in law for the medical doctors to unplug him themselves.
In any case, this seems like a flawed argument since it rests on something we cannot be sure of. And, your opponents could simply argue that they want to change this definition. In a sense, that's what they are after when they want to make it illegal to perform abortions. They want it to be considered the act of killing a human which means changing some definitions.
Furthermore, there's a difference between a brain that has ceased to function with a brain that hasn't yet begun to function. In the latter case, the potential still remains that it will start functioning, and, this is what will happen in all probability. It's a bad comparison.
This is not presented as argument, it is presented as medical opinion given by medical professionals who answer to their own ethics committees, and agreed upon by the courts.
Sure, but like I said, there's a difference between a brain which has stopped functioning and one that hasn't yet begun. In the latter case, the potential for a future life remains. The is a very important difference with many implications. It cannot be overlooked.
And, what the courts have already decided can be modified. This happens all the time. The laws regarding abortion are different all over the world and often change.
For your information, I'm not for making abortion illegal. I think the woman should have the right to decide. However, I don't think your line of argumentation is particularly strong for our case.
I merely point out that while there is possible potential for brain function via the writings of persons more experienced in the subject than I...it could also be argued that there is potential for little or no brain function.
Anti choice argues that the fetus is a living functioning being from the point of conception. Science says not until the 28th week of gestation.
Your statements are not correct.
The question is not whether a foetus is alive or not, but whether it is considered a human. This consideration is different depending on the laws of which country you are referring to. And, laws can change.
Medical science does not say that life is impossible without a brain. Plants do not have a brain. Unicellular life forms do not have a brain. What medical science states is that when the human brain stops to function and there is no medical hope of starting it again, then the human can be considered dead for all practical purposes. If there was a medical hope of restarting the brain, then the person would not be considered dead.
You'll also not that the laws used to deem that a human is medically dead or not vary depending on the country. This is not a universal statement.
The problem with abortion has always been that the laws protecting the freedom of the woman trump those protecting the freedom of the foetus. It has nothing to do with the definition of death.
So I am 'speaking' nationally and you are referencing international.
Please note I do not use the term 'life' excepting in a quote often used and cited. I used the term functioning being as in regards to homo sapiens.
You have misread my statements and inserted your own interpretations.
The point is the medical definition of death is not like the boiling point of water. It can change depending on how you define death. And, it does. The proof is that definition is different all around the world and has been changed in some countries. There's no reason why it couldn't be changed in US. Slaves were once considered legal, but the laws have been changed. There was a time when most medical doctors believed that men of color, especially Pygmies, were not homo sapiens. This medical definition has been changed.
That being said, the definition of death and what is human is not that important in the abortion debate. If women did not have to carry foetuses, it would likely be true that killing a foetus would be considered murder. However, the woman must carry a foetus and this means there is a conflict between her right of freedom, and the right of the foetus to live. This is the where the whole matter resides. Who's freedom is more important. Some countries say it's the woman's, some say it's the foetus's.
The whole thing boils down to legislating morality for one particular group of people which lessens the premise that 'all men' (meaning people) are created equal. Morality is the one thing that can not be legislated as it is out of the purview of man.
Once again you argue with a statement, not my own, which is supported by a simple search.
The point is, the statement you brought up doesn't have much to do with this case at all. It certainly can't be used as part of an argument against making abortion illegal. It's off topic, nothing more than a red herring logical fallacy.
Morality is legislated all the time. Some tribes in Indonesia consider it morally correct to indulge in cannibalism. There is a tribe in the Amazon who believe it is morally good to kill a baby born with a physical or mental disability because they believe it means it has been taken over by the devil and could be a source of negativity for the whole community. Our legislation deems murder as being illegal. However, what we call murder and the morality of this act is subjective in many ways.
Again the simple scientific definition of brain function as a means of determining life still applies.
The topic is why OWS does not protest abortion, the answer is that it is a moral issue not a national issue.
I am finished debating this subject unless it has reference to the original topic.
There is no "simple scientific definition of brain function a means of determining life." That's a phony, invented factoid.
Take it up with the AMA...
Sure. Please post your source for the "scientific definition" for "determining life" by brain function. (No Nazi sources please!)
@PandoraK -- so you're making it up. Thought so!
Google medical definition of death. discount anything that does not have either an edu or gov or anything associated with medicine. Pretty easy to find. Lots of excellent articles.
It's a political issue and a national one. Morals are subjective, and there are various laws all around the world concerning abortion. There have been court cases in US.
Where is the fetus's choice? Is the amount life on this Earth of a matter to consider? How do we solve this issue? Where can we go from here? The future?
no one should be forced to decide another individuals decision on their bringing life to the world without addressing the lifelong financial responsibility that individual will have to pay. If a father is for abortion but you people make it your business to decide for him making it law because after all you know what's right and wrong for another individual than most people do, then you should also back the child support payments in the months or years he cannot afford to pay it, otherwise mind your own dam business God will judge and is capable of giving that life another chance, impedes u want to speak for God too and say he is limited in this.
You were doing a pretty good job until you brought God into it. But whatever, you and I have the same ideas.
t's more than that..politically, morally...etc, .Abortion is a horror to the woman....It's aftermath causes much regret, depression and remorse. This fact is hidden by the abortion industry... They want to call it a procedure....I don't want my tax $$ to pay for this "procedure" either. Planned parenthood wants federal $$...our taxes...to perpetrate & promote their violence .
The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.
A disingenuous argument. You are not concerned with the the horror to women. If you were, you would acknowledge the horror of them being forced to carry a fetus to term against their will. Doing so causes regret, depression and remorse. It also takes away the most basic right: the right of control over one's own body. Morally, taking away that right is akin to rape.
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Planned Parenthood is nothing more than a killing machine. Funny how the liberals talk about how conservatives want people to die, yet they do this in an attempt to protect Planned Parenthood. Think about that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NG-QQ9eQKZE This whole budget battle is just a game to the libs.....My taxes should not fund this..
Planned parenthood saves women's lives every day. Taking away a women's right to control her own body is the moral equivalent of rape.
Propaganda nonsense from the baby killing industry. A lot of gullible, malleable people have bought into this evil, destructive mentality.. It takes some brains, heart and soul to really think this one through.
"It takes some brains, heart and soul to really think this one through."
None of which qualities you have demonstrated on these fora, including your "contribution" to this thread.
You wish to impose a personal religious doctrine on women, nothing more. You have no other basis for determining that a fetus is a person. You have no basis for insisting a woman's sovereignty over her body be taken away. You have provided no kernel of thought that would support your position. You have only provided declarations.
As to propaganda, that's all I read in your posts. Do you even know what most of planned Parenthood does? Your one-dimensional characterization of its activities demonstrates nothing if not broad stroke right-wing talking-point propaganda.
No religious doctrine ...just an obvious act...which is senseless, selfish destruction of innocent human life,,,,promoted by $$ hungry abortion mills,,,and funded from unwillingly taxpayer $$ to deceitful, corrupt planned parenthood. Get w/ the program..stop twisting things..to fit the violent myth you've bought in to.
Of course it's religious doctrine if your classify a fetus as a human life. It is a purely philosophical/religious designation, and you are totally disingenuous claiming otherwise.
Are you in favor of capital punishment?
no..opposed..pretty much
Might as well go for the trifecta. Tell me about the war machine or as some people refer to it as the DOD.
there are just wars
I will think about that
gene understanding and splicing will make it possible to choose our children's traits
This is a useless thread. Both sides of the debate are always talking about two different things. The pro life side is arguing about life. The pro abortion side is arguing about privacy. Two different issues.
My goodness you certainly have misinterpreted the facts. One side maintains the right to life; the other side the opposite. Abortion is murder. What murderer can claim his or her right to privacy for such a heinous deed?
Sigh... Both sides are talking about two different thing. What is so hard to understand?
So murder is a private act, not subject to the victim's right to life? I fail to see your logic. If someone murders, he or she deprives another person of life. Where exactly is the right to privacy?
According to the law it is not murder. No amount of personal opinion is going to change that. Don't like it? Get the law changed.
If the fetus is not a person, it is not murder.
But the fetus is a person.
Not legally. And your declaring it doesn't make it so. There is nothing in science or law to support your statement.
Please, explain to me why is not a person?
No, it is up to you to prove that it is before you take away a basic right from women, whose bodies are necessary to bring a fetus to term. It should be an interesting read, since no scientist has been able to do so, nor does the fetus have legal standing as a person.
Scientifically and legally, an egg is not a chicken.
So, the fetus has no right to life? Ah, but there's the rub. You see, the federal government and thirty-six states do recognize the fetus as a person, specifically "a child in utero," who can be the victim of crime under the Unborn Victims of Violence Act of 2004, a federal law and also under the state laws of the previously mentioned thirty-six states.
Obviously, you were wrong when you wrote "...nothing in science or law supports your statement" that the fetus is a person.
You are also relying on faulty scientific conclusions, if you believe that many researchers do not consider a fetus a person.
I leave it to you to make another generalization with which I can only view in light of Alexander Dumas's opinion of generalizations.
I forgot about that Bush era law. I stand corrected. It has not withstood scrutiny by the Supreme court, however, and likely never will.
No scientist can claim a fetus as a human being simply because the definition is a philosophic, not scientific one. Many researchers may believe that the fetus is a human being, but that belief is personal, not one based on science. All science can do is identify which species a fetus belongs to: personhood is a metaphysical, not scientific issue.
A human fetus IS human.
Those weren't jars of fetal pigs they found in Kermit Goslin's clinic in Philadelphia.
A fetus doesn't have rights under the law, but it is human. Denying humanity makes a host of atrocities palatable to the perpetrator: Irish Penal laws, slavery, genocide, honor killings, capital punishment, war, rape, urinating onto the corpse of your enemy AND shoving a pair of scissors into the skull of a newborn.
Roe v. Wade affirms the right of one human over another. Whether you agree or not with the morality, this is the legal and scientific fact. Perhaps you can sleep better at night if you tell yourself they aren't humans and they aren't persons. Some Hutus felt he same way about Tutsis, Nazi's felt the same way about Jews, and from the signs I read in and around Zuccotti Park, OWS feels that way about "the 1%".
Roe v wade defined personhood as beginning after the first term. Or, rather, more accurately, it defined a state interest as beginning then.
A human fetus is indeed genetically Homo Sapiens. Whether it is a human being or not is a matter exclusively of philosophy, not fact. Conjecture about its standing as a person is just that: conjecture, and taking away a woman's rights over her own body on the basis of anyone's conjecture is unethical.
No law gives anyone complete rights over their own body. You don't have the legally protected right to inject heroin into the privacy of your own veins. In some locales, you don't have the right to inhale any kind of smoke into the privacy of your own lungs.
Roe affirms the right of a woman over that of an unborn person up to a certain age. Both are human. But the rights of one trump the rights of another.
To entertain some magical notion that up to three months post conception this uterine contents is neither human, nor a person, and then suddenly become so on the first day of the second trimester (or third trimester depending on the state legislature) is conjecture.
To entertain some magical notion that up to three months post conception this uterus contains a person is conjecture. To entertain some magical notion that you know when human life begins is pure conjecture.
I don't believe that right wingers are human: there is less evidence of their humanity than would support conjecture that a blastocyst is human. But it's still conjecture.
And to take away a woman's self-sovereignty on the basis of that conjecture is unethical, an act of power, not reason or compassion.
I'm sorry to differ again, but since the law recognizes fetuses as "a member of the species of Homo sapiens," it basically grants fetuses legal personhood, which does not involve any spiritual or metaphysical assumptions. Though the federal law stopped short of including abortion as a crime against the fetus, many people, including myself, are working to change that part of the law.
I wish you abject failure.
There are others working to overturn the UVVA act, or at least amend it.I wish them success. At any rate, there is no conflict between Roe v Wade and this law.
What you fail to understand is the sovereignty of women over their own bodies. And this latest law does not usurp that legal principle.
Your opposition to choice is based on your personal belief that a fetus is a person. That belief has no foundation in fact, but in a personal moral/religious code. It is not the truth, but only only your opinion, unfounded by science or reason. And based on that opinion, you would strip all women of the basic right to refuse her body being used against her will.
No one has "sovereignty" over another. The unborn "fetus" is a human being distinct, biologically and genetically, from the mother. Your insistence that the "fetus' is a "fetus" and always and evermore a "fetus' is your personal semantic belief, akin to a religious tenet that has no basis in fact.
Parasites are distinct as well. That doesn't grant them personhood.
A fetus is a biological entity that is distinct from the mother. The issue of its humanity is metaphysical, not scientific.
At what point, exactly, does the egg become the chicken? Pinpointing that is impossible scientifically. It can only be discussed philosophically.
I have demonstrated reason in carefully pointing out the laws, which you said didn't exist.
Humans have sovereignty over their bodies only so long as that sovereignty does not interfere with the basic right of another "member of the species of Homo sapiens" to life, the most basic of rights.
When one person takes the life of another innocent "member of the species of Homo sapiens," most people call such an act murder. You can philosophise to your heart's content and claim women have ultimate sovereignty over their bodies,but such an act is still homocide.
You are claiming that a woman's right to control her own body supersedes the right of another "member of the species of Homo sapiens" to life.
It is you who are philosophising. There is no basis in fact of a fetus being a person. It is a designation based on unsupported and unsupportable belief. It is OPINION. And based on nothing but opinion, it is unethical to eliminate a woman's right to choose, based on HER opinion.
And why should they do that? Why is it a false choice? Why is it not the mother's choice? Who gives you any right to tell anyone how to live their lives and deal with their own bodies.
Why take your mistake out on the kid and kill it? Why? The kid didn't do anything wrong.
Why try to control everyone's lives?
When people make mistakes in their lives and those mistakes involve the potential loss of human life, then society has a duty to step in. When people screw up society often has to make sure those wrongs are fixed properly.
You should also consider the life of the fetus. The mother--in most cases--chooses to engage sexual relations fully aware of the possible consequences. Accepting consequences for our actions is called responsibility, a word that is becoming less and less popular as the mental outlook of the average American becomes more and more infantile.
Perhaps, it would be better to encourage Americans to grow up; stop fondling their cell phones, playing video games, and loosely engaging in activities that may have unwanted consequences.
I would like to ask the same question as beautifulworld and add the fact that taking responsibility takes many different routes. Taking responsibility implies a reaction to a problem and there are several ways to deal with the situation. One could have the child when one is not ready or one could have an abortion. Either way I fully believe that a woman's body belongs solely to her. The father has a minuscule amount of input but that is because he was involved. However, the final decision rests with the woman and in my opinion no one has any right to tell her what she should do with her body. Not you, not me, and not the president of the United States.
I would just like to add that nobody in this world in their right mind is pro-abortion: let me make that clear now. There is a major difference between being pro-choice and being pro-abortion. I am personally pro-choice, not because I think abortions should be encouraged, but because it's basically a last-ditch option that people should have a right to turn to if for whatever reason there's nothing else there. To maintain or terminate a pregnancy is an incredibly hard decision and the only one qualified to make that decision is the mother. Now, once the fetus is viable outside the uterus, then it's not a fetus anymore and there's no good reason not to carry it to term, and any abortion one decides to have should be carried out as early on as possible. Aside from those basic guidelines, however, it's still the woman's body and it's her call to make.
Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: ". . . any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life.
Very Good Lara we do have common ground.
so glad...talk to you later..
We diminish many, many categories of human life: Irqais, Afghanis, our own soldiers, and criminals, for instance. How many "unborn fetuses" are actually terminated each year? Is it as many as we kill in a year of war? To select the right of a woman to make a medical decision about her own body and its reproductive process on which to focus smacks more of religious or philosophical differences than legal or political ones.
@Phanya2011 - "How many "unborn fetuses" are actually terminated each year? Is it as many as we kill in a year of war?"
Far more. More abortions are performed in the US in a single year than all the casualties, military and civilian, in the entire Iraqi War.
Makes one shudder to think what the population would be without it.
Without what ... all that death? The population would of course be greater. But since there's no population issue in the US, or anywhere in the global northern hemisphere, there's nothing to shudder at, other than all that death, of course.
Your argument does little to address the promotion of cruelly destroying innocent human life.....which is rampant in the USA.. And pushed big time by NARAL..Obamas friends
birthcontrol is medicinal abortion. you do know that right. i dont think you should condemn others for the same thing that almost every woman does almost every month
In an ideal world, there would be no need for this debate because use of contraception where pregnancy isn't the desired aim would be ubiquitous, there would be enough loving, stable childless couples prepared to raise a family that children conceived by accident could still be placed within a few weeks of birth in a home where they would be able to flourish anyway, and we would be medically capable of curing or at least treating disorders like Tay-Sachs' disease and its more painful cousins.
As it stands right now, that's not the case. There are all kinds of accidental pregnancies, often because of lack of access to or lack of understanding how to use contraception, and there's no guarantee that the couple who conceived the child is in any way prepared to raise it. The foster care system is badly broken, there are never enough permanent places for children given up by their parents, and most often dropping a kid off at a fire station means you've basically condemned them to a tumultuous, impoverished, often abusive childhood, that then often leads them onto the streets or into the prison system.
Then on top of that look at the survival prospects of a child with any number of rare genetic disorders. There are a whole host of conditions in which a child will have a few months, or a year, or two years of life, the tail end of which (or possibly the entirety of which) will be spent in medical facilities and often in intense, chronic pain. I refuse to believe that there is any reason to bring a baby into this world only to subject them to that.
Finally, you have cases in which it is seriously damaging to the mother to carry a fetus to term; the most obvious of these being if something goes wrong with a pregnancy. If something happens, and attempting to carry to term will most likely severely injure or kill the mother, then while she has the choice to continue to push on with the pregnancy she should also have the choice to terminate it and try again. Also, if the conception occurs out of rape or incest, then there is absolutely no reason other than pure sadism to force a woman to carry her violator's child.
In an ideal world, none of these things would matter, and there would be no need for abortions. Even in this world, there is often a better way to cope with an unwanted pregnancy than terminating it, but that is not true all the time. As much as I don't like the idea of a woman having an abortion, I accept that there are fates out there that are far worse for a mother and/or her child than a quick death before the latter is even fully a child, and I don't want to subject any mother or child to those fates against their will.
I agree with you about people being in their right minds and being pro-abortion.
What about the rights of the baby? Why does nobody care about an unborns right?
I don't have an answer to that but lets get the terminology right at least. A fetus is in the wom and a baby is out side. After carried to term no one has a right to kill the child
So you totally disregard the rights of the fetus?
Interesting.
Did I say that? No I didn't. I'm not a woman but I'm sure choosing the option of termination for a woman is probably one of the hardest things they can do. For them it includes taking into account many different variables but in the end,as I've already said, it is the choice of the mother's not mine.
I suppose that you're for property rights, for animal rights, women's rights, for civil rights, etc, but what about the fetus's most basic right: the right to life?
You postulate that the mother has the ultimate choice. So do most who deprive other people of their rights, but victims also have rights, which are ignored by perpetrators.
You choose to ignore the fetus's basic right to live. So do mothers who choose abortions, as do murderers.
Abortion may be a hard decision taking many variables into account, but it ignores the primary issue, as you do: the fetus's right to live.
I'm taking that into account but who says you can choose what to do with a fetus? Is it Jesus because if it is then you have an argument based of ancient metaphors.
Jesus has nothing to do with taking a life. That's up to us. Is it that you believe a fetus is not alive and, therefore, not entitled to basic rights?
Not at all. My problem is that people want to get into other people's private lives where they are not wanted or needed and tell others how to live their lives. I personally don't care if someone is gay or not as long as they don't force it on me. The same goes for people who get in my face on anything. I don't care if you disprove but it is my choice not your place.
see no evil, hear no evil, eh? That's not a philosophy of life; it's the I've-got-iPod-on-so-don't-bother-me way of the world, including at Zuccotti Park I suppose.
Evil, like beauty, is often in the eye of the beholder. You happen to believe a fetus has the same rights as the person who, for whatever reason, has created said fetus. I do not agree with that position, as I do not believe the rights of a fetus override the rights of the mother. But more than that, I don't believe the government should be involved in the matter. It is between a woman, her doctor and her god. I would ask, though, that for those who profess to cherish human life, please put as much effort in ending wars and vicious hate crimes and the myriad other ways we have of killing each other as you put in this question.
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Where the hell do you get that I don't care? I don't like OWS but I still care about some major points. My only belief on abortion boils down to the fact that is should be a private matter with no one else's interference.
So what does that have to do with taking another life?
If a mother chooses to have an abortion it is her choice. I've been saying this for quite a while.
You still choose to ignore the fetus's basic right to live. You say it is the mother's right to choose whether the fetus should continue to live or not? Why should she have the right to decide to terminate the fetus's life? Our society routinely condemns mothers, who kill their infants. Exactly where do you differentiate?
Because of what the baby will do to her body and her life afterwards. Do you know how much the average parents spend on diapers? Do you know how much a college education costs? How much money does it take to raise a child to adulthood? I'll give you a little hint, more than you will probably ever make in 30 years.
I see, but the same argument can be used by a mother who terminates her infant's life. In fact, now that I think about it, the same argument could have been used by John Wayne Gacy: he was simply sparing his victims the agony of their miserable lives and society of the burden of supporting them.
Your arguments always end in non sequiturs or generalizations. Get specific; when does someone have the right to terminate another person's life?
When it is inside their fucking body. If you want to get technical a fetus is a parasite. I don't see them that way but they are. If its in your body and you don't want it then you have every right to terminate.
What do you mean by this "The mother--in most cases--chooses to engage sexual relations fully aware of the possible consequences." Are you saying the father has no responsibility? Just curious.
Of course fathers bear equal responsibility and should be forced to pay child support for the child regardless of whether they ever see the child, but one of the major arguments for abortion or "pro-choice" is that the mother should have the ultimate decision since her body belongs to her. Naturally, that stance totally disregards the rights of the fetus.
An abortion involves three people: the father, the mother, and--the only one to lose his or her life--the fetus.
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Thanks for clarifying.
you do understand that birthcontrol is abortion. the fertilized egg is prevented from implantation.. hence an abortion
In their defense, it depends where they draw the line. An egg is not a foetus. Similarly, some places in the world make it illegal to kill a foetus that reaches a certain age. Before that age, it's fine. Other places would only consider the act of killing after birth as being murder. Just before would be OK.
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you do understand that birthcontrol is abortion. the fertilized egg is prevented from implantation.. hence an abortion.
Not true. Most birth control methods prevent an egg from ever being fertilized.
No; most of them prevent the fertilized egg from implanting in the wall of the womb.
You're thinking of the morning after pill.
And the IUD, and hormone based pills. The morning after dislodges an implanted egg; the IUD and others keep the fertilized egg from implanting. Diaphragms, condoms and abstinence are what's left.
i realize you are not going to take my word for it.
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/edn-bcpill.html
http://www.americanpregnancy.org/preventingpregnancy/birthcontrolfailure.html
http://www.amplifyyourvoice.org/u/ashthom/2011/11/17/Personhood-and-Birth-Control-Demystified
I love when someone posts a bunch of links and says, "see!", as if it proves something. If your trying to prove that "birth control is abortion" you failed, since it's an inaccurate statement
i love it when moralist ignore facts that disrupt their tirades because it proves to be inconvenient to the 'cause'.
perfect description of your posts, gestopo (or is that gestapo?)
You are for a woman's right to murder a child?
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I'm for a woman's right to decide what she wants to do with her body. As of right now I'm still a child but if my mother had decided to have me aborted way back when then I would have held her no ill will. Are you for restricting one's right to their body?
No. Just to the dismemberment of another's body. It is utterly depraved. A big blight and scar on civil society. We have advanced in technology, but regressed in cruelty.
Maybe we make up for it in giving animals similar rights to human? Which the very idea is completely absurd. You want to talk about a blight on society lets talk about the television show 16 and Pregnant. Teenage pregnancy is one of the largest problems we have a society.
Yes it is. It's a really complicated problem with no easy answers.
That depends on your view of contraceptive education
Contraceptive education is hardly a panacea for abortion.
Is this really all you're going to respond to? Whatever. I didn't say that at all. I think contraceptives should be taught and that abortion and contraceptives both should be kept as viable options.
All I'm going to respond to? I don't understand. I've made a perfectly reasonable proposition. I'd hope it would be considered and discussed intelligently. So far, I don't see much of that.
OWS cares more for animal on factory farms than mother and children affected by abortion? Abortion just too complicated and factory farming kinda easy? Less controversial? OWS playing to the base? Help me understand the OWS dodge on a great moral issue of the day
All I have is they are idiots. I don't see how an animal can have similar rights to you or me but apparently they do. I guess I missed the memo.
Wtf? In this day and age? Contraceptive education is far advanced from 40 years ago, when I was a kid. It's called irresponsibility. People today know they can go abort the kid. Problem solved.
Prevention is still better than reaction wouldn't you say? It all comes down to responsibility. I'm not saying that abortion should be taken away as a viable option at all but you can teach prevention before a reaction has to be made.
Yes. I agree.
Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us. The English poet, John Donne, wrote: ". . . any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life.
Well that was very poetic and comes from an entirely different form of thinking than what I believe in. I'm not diminishing it. All I'm saying is that it is a mother's dis-ease to deal with and she may do so by whatever means she feels fit.
It's more than that..politically, morally...etc, .Abortion is a horror to the woman....It's aftermath causes much regret, depression and remorse. This fact is hidden by the abortion industry... They want to call it a procedure....I don't want my tax $$ to pay for this "procedure" either. Planned parenthood wants federal $$...our taxes...to perpetrate & promote their violence .
The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.
Where exactly do you take your morals? I tend to make my own based on fact. I'm sure there are long lasting affects on the ex-mothers but it was their choice to begin with.
It is immoral to promote this as an option in ones life.. It is reprehensibly immoral to fund organizations that have as their raison d etre...promotion of destroying the unborn,...with our tax $$..no less.
I'm sorry but its not immoral. It should be private and the parents should be paying not you or I but it is not immoral. Are you Christian?
it is destroying innocent human life. you don't believe that's a moral issue?
Only less than pedophilia but we aren't talking about that. At this point I would only be repeating what I've said before.
A fetus is not a human being: it a fetus. It is a function of the woman's body.
No woman should be forced, against her will, to bring a fetus to term. Her body is hers, and hers alone.
The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.
A documentary on mammals indicated that the only way nature could help insure that the mother would stick around long enough for the mammalian offspring to become independent (a long time in humans) was to cause a feel-good drug to be dispensed to the baby and the mother to, in essence, make them addicted to each other. So, apparently nature didn't trust love alone. The documentary was something like "Why monkeys laugh and dogs cry" or something like that. As for teaching each other to love, the best way to do that is be an example and operate from love at all times yourself. People will see how incredibly joyful life can be and emulate you. The neat thing about operating from love instead of fear is that each of us can do it all by ourselves without help from anyone else and without requiring anyone else to do the same.
thank you for this interesting,civilized post. I love your philosophy re starting with yourself....as the source of love
It is a good plan :)
Have you ever been faced with whether or not to abort your child?
off base and irrelevant question.... In this discussion re the destruction of human life...the rhetoric is so removed from what is really happening... they arecalling it "choice",,,rather than killing.
And that my unfriend was a deflection. If you have never been faced with that choice then you have no room to speak as if you've gone through it.
Your question is with out logic.......I have not been given the opportunity to destroy a person..So since I haven't been had the choice of whether to kill some one or not...I therefore can not have an opinion on the killing of an innocent person.
Whatever, twist it whatever way you want but I have no place in someone else's decision to end their child's life and neither do you.
you are twisting it...and I see why,,,,,, you have bought into that pathetic rationalization promoted by the abortion mongers
So what exactly is your solution?
No tax $$ to planned parenthood...Give states the right to vote re restrictions/decisions pertinent to Roe v Wade
And mine is to leave it up to the parents to pay for the abortion but leave it an option
"I have no place in someone else's decision to end their child's life"
Surely one of the most barbaric statements one could ever imagine.
Coming from OWS who has a mother that put her child on train tracks. And you can twist almost anything in a negative light if you take it out of context. Its a fallacy of some sort I'm sure.
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This stance on abortion by the conservatives always gives me a chuckle.
They spend their time telling us how the government shouldn't step in to help people in need with programs such as welfare, health-care for all, free education, etc... but then go on an on about how the government should step in and force a mother to keep a fetus she does not want.
Then they'll tell you how important it is that the United-States go to war even though that means killing thousands of innocent people in many countries.
It's cool to spend taxes if it means going to kill overseas, but it's a real faux-pas if it means helping Americans with social programs. "Hey son! You want me to pay for those in need! Give a break! Oh? You're asking for war funds. OK, here's my checkbook. How much do you need?".
You just got to love conservative logic.
the bible supported abortion, that was done by a priest, in god's name, in his holly temple! the 1984 NIV footnote of numbers 5:11-31 explained what "to thy thigh to rot, they belly to swell" meant: numbers 5:21 "or causes you to have a miscarrying womb and barrenness" to CAUSE a miscarrying womb IS an abortion.
the judeo-christian god is a myth and historical evidence proves it. 3.3.3 ATHEISM: A HISTORY OF GOD (Part 1)
Let's look at this issue through the John Locke's Rights Theory. You have a right to your body, but there is also the right to life. Now at any moment in development the child is alive, there is no arguing with that. People claim that you have a right to life, but how could you put the right to life over the right to body. So in John Locke's theory the right to life supersedes the right to body.
Second if you were not smart enough to use protection, how are you smart enough to decide on the potential life of a human being? Now I know that there are instances of rape, which is a truly sad thing in our society, but there is always adoption and many other choices.
Roe v. Wade showed us that a few smart lawyers were able to use the US Supreme court to make law. If only out of the millions of lawyers practicing in the US now could inspire laws protecting the american people from a corrupt Capitol Hill. In the UK there is a vote of no confidence why not something along those lines here. I'm sick of all the fighting in 'our' house. If they (our representatives) were my children I'd have already spanked them and send them to bed for all the ill will and bad politics. Just a thought about what I learned from Roe v. Wade.
I do not believe that OWS should get into the issues of pro choice or anti choice, I also do not believe the government should once again interfere with these issues.
Too often the argument against choice is based on religious leanings, leanings which are NOT held by all...too often pro choice is forced to present as being a freedom when it should not be even up for debate.
Far into antiquity choice was the only method of birth control other than abstinence, this choice was always the female's decision and her's alone.
Obviously those who argue against 'abortion on demand' have little real information on the entire process that occurs prior to any medical intervention.
All alternatives are offered, mandatory counseling by professionals are but two of the steps in this process and no medical services are supplied until the entire process has been applied.
NO woman walks into a service provider and receives treatment that day or even that week.
You do understand that birthcontrol is abortion. birthcontrol does not prevent the egg from being fertilized, it prevents the fertilized egg from being implanted. hence an abortion every other month for any woman on birthcontrol. remember that each time you swallow a birthcontrol pill before you condemn others.
You are mistaken. Birth control pills work primarily by altering a woman's hormonal cycle so that an egg is not released from the ovary.
primarily but also by preventing implantation. hence.. abortion maybe not every month or so but at least once a year. you can find this information if you choose to look
In the event an egg does get fertilized, preventing implantation, may be another mechanism of action. If you have some information which demonstrates this occurs at least once a year, please show me.
the fact that you get to do the deed and not bare the consequences makes me believe that birth control is abortion. Wanting info that rationalizes a behavior is just silly in my book.
my point being , regardless of how many times a year this may occur, to be against abortion is to be against birth control. you cant have it both ways
This issue is a lose, lose for women, no matter what.
Too true..
i'm curious to know why you say that
I thought it was obvious. We lose if we have no choice. We lose if we have an abortion. There's no great answer for women.
I'm not a woman but I think I'd go with the choice.
Seems like a false dichotomy. Why do you lose if you don't have the choice of abortion? Why is freedom defined as the ability to abort your child, your own flesh and blood?
Nobody in this world in their right mind is pro-abortion: let me make that clear now. There is a major difference between being pro-choice and being pro-abortion. I am personally pro-choice, not because I think abortions should be encouraged, but because it's basically a last-ditch option that people should have a right to turn to if for whatever reason there's nothing else there. To maintain or terminate a pregnancy is an incredibly hard decision and the only one qualified to make that decision is the mother. Now, once the fetus is viable outside the uterus, then it's not a fetus anymore and there's no good reason not to carry it to term, and any abortion one decides to have should be carried out as early on as possible. Aside from those basic guidelines, however, it's still the woman's body and it's her call to make.
In an ideal world, there would be no need for this debate because use of contraception where pregnancy isn't the desired aim would be ubiquitous, there would be enough loving, stable childless couples prepared to raise a family that children conceived by accident could still be placed within a few weeks of birth in a home where they would be able to flourish anyway, and we would be medically capable of curing or at least treating disorders like Tay-Sachs' disease and its more painful cousins.
As it stands right now, that's not the case. There are all kinds of accidental pregnancies, often because of lack of access to or lack of understanding how to use contraception, and there's no guarantee that the couple who conceived the child is in any way prepared to raise it. The foster care system is badly broken, there are never enough permanent places for children given up by their parents, and most often dropping a kid off at a fire station means you've basically condemned them to a tumultuous, impoverished, often abusive childhood, that then often leads them onto the streets or into the prison system.
Then on top of that look at the survival prospects of a child with any number of rare genetic disorders. There are a whole host of conditions in which a child will have a few months, or a year, or two years of life, the tail end of which (or possibly the entirety of which) will be spent in medical facilities and often in intense, chronic pain. I refuse to believe that there is any reason to bring a baby into this world only to subject them to that.
Finally, you have cases in which it is seriously damaging to the mother to carry a fetus to term; the most obvious of these being if something goes wrong with a pregnancy. If something happens, and attempting to carry to term will most likely severely injure or kill the mother, then while she has the choice to continue to push on with the pregnancy she should also have the choice to terminate it and try again. Also, if the conception occurs out of rape or incest, then there is absolutely no reason other than pure sadism to force a woman to carry her violator's child.
In an ideal world, none of these things would matter, and there would be no need for abortions. Even in this world, there is often a better way to cope with an unwanted pregnancy than terminating it, but that is not true all the time. As much as I don't like the idea of a woman having an abortion, I accept that there are fates out there that are far worse for a mother and/or her child than a quick death for the latter before it is even fully a child (especially early on, when it's biologically not much different from a uterine tumor), and I don't want to subject any mother or child to those fates against their will.
why do you keep posting the same treatise here?
Because this whole thing is meaningless unless you take these things into account. Otherwise we have one group shouting "It's murder" and another group shouting "It's freedom" and nobody actually makes any headway in understanding the issue. I know where I stand with respect to this issue and I justify my stance with the post above, but I'm not seeing anyone else willing to seriously address these points and formulate some sort of argument one way or another based on them.
No, it's not all meaningless if we don't consider your points. The question on the floor is why OWS dodged the issue. Farm animals over mothers & children shows a startling disconnect from the rest of the country.
Second, your assertions are a hodgepodge of red herrings and inaccuracies.
There are not "all kinds of accidental pregnancies," and "lack of access to or lack of understanding how to use contraception" is not a primary cause of abortion in the US.
Since when do we require a "guarantee that the couple who conceived the child is in any way prepared to raise it"? Do you know any natural parents required to make one?
Yes, the foster care system is badly broken. Let's work on fixing it.
Who says "there are never enough permanent places for children given up by their parents"? I think you made that up.
And this is right out of Dickens, pure unadulturated fiction: "most often dropping a kid off at a fire station means you've basically condemned them to a tumultuous, impoverished, often abusive childhood, that then often leads them onto the streets or into the prison system."
And your argument re "rare genetic disorders" is a red herring. This is a very small minority of abortions. The truth is, people are scared into abortion by the medical establishment regarding a multitude of possible birth defects, including Down Syndrome and spina bifida, in which babies have excellent opportunities for long and happy lives, not "chronic pain."
And maternal death is the ultimate red herring. I won't even argue that one. I'll give you the point. But it's a very small number of abortions.
Pro choice = Pro the option to murder your offspring. What a nice reflection of yourself. I guess adoption is too much to ask to save the child from your first mistake - getting pregnant then the second mistake murdering them. Nice way to live.
Are you a woman? If not, you'll never really know.
This is such a profound topic that I'm just not sure I can put it into a few words. I can only speak for myself here. I personally am against abortion and I don't think pregnancy or giving birth is that big of a deal. If you don't want the baby, deliver it and move on. But, our society is so damn judgmental. That is the problem. Women are judged for having sex, women are judged for birth control failing, women are judged for not having the baby, women are judged for having the baby, women are judged for giving the baby away. If all the scorn, the scarlet letters could disappear it would be easier for many women to deal with.
There's judgmentalism for everything, as you note. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But that's hardly an argument for legal abortion on demand. Even you must see that. Work on changing the judgmentalism.
You know what BonTon, I think it is people like you that make this into a very difficult issue. "But that's hardly an argument for legal abortion on demand." Yeah, right. You want to force your ideas on women and make them feel shameful at the same time. That's the core of the problem with this issue.
Is that so? it's a very modern view to bring everything down to feelings, as if that's the most important thing to consider. Can you imagine a plantation owner in 1860 complaining that the abolitionists are just trying to "make us feel bad" and are being very "judgmental" about slavery? If you think the "core of the problem" is about "feelings', then I'd suggest you have a lot more thinking to do.
The plantation owners felt no shame, BonTon. Women are made to feel shameful. Feelings are the basis of our humanity. Don't deal with them and you won't get very far.
Parents who abandon or neglect their children are shamed too, even if they have a problem like drug addiction. Are you saying that we should strive for a shame-free society, where we're all giving each other the thumbs-up all the time?
No. And you don't need to listen. You can remain intransigent and move this issue nowhere.
But, if you want to listen, in my mind, here's the thing, Many women (I'm not talking about myself. I was raised by hippies, for god's sake.) feel so much shame, largely because of religion, that the shame trumps doing the right thing. So, the very religion that shames them in a way causes them to do the wrong thing.
I don't agree with that assessment. "Religion" and religious people have also persuaded many women to have their babies and have helped them in tangible ways in that regard.
Anyway, it still seems your conclusion is that we eliminate "shame." Not sure why or how.
We'd need a major shift in society. Until then, this will remain a controversial issue.
I think the solution is simple: on issues which have no clear answer, DO NOT attempt to legislate.
Roe vs Wade did not make abortion any more legal than it was before -- it just said that you cannot make it illegal. It wasn't promoting abortion, it was merely denying the state's right to criminalize.
Let the issue be resolved at the private level on a case-by-case basis. On a controversial issue, there will be others who share your view and can help you. There is nothing that will make it easier.
Good points. You cannot legislate something like abortion. It is too controversial. I also think OWS has enough on it's plate anyway.
"Do not legislate" is a big cop out.
The courts have legislated for you. They made it quite more legal than it was before. That's what happens when you strike down state restrictions.
That's democracy in action? It's the antithesis of democracy.
Of course. That's just an observation, not a position. And it's true of every social issue, from segregation t gay rights. But if its an excuse for doing nothing, then it's a cop out.
Sorry, BonTon. I noticed I permalinked you by accident. Didn't mean to.
Sorry, you don't teach love. You share & give love. It's up to you, not someone else.
Love. Teach love and you'll have fewer abortions.
I have tried to get a lot of people to not pollute the web with nonsense and to observe users before engaging. Some just want to argue regardless and some rationalize it. But nobody helps others to recognize they are being toyed with by a nutter. If we could create an atmosphere of awareness and self control, that would be great. Until then I only stop in every so often and when I see him provoking, I do what I can.
Okay. I try to just respond to posts only because I have found it nearly impossible to tell who some of the trolls are. Some are obvious, and others, truly not. But, enlighten me. That's fine.
@richardkentgates, you're the troll. You fat phony. You're here to lie and get people to visit your crappy citicommons site, where you'll pitch grade-DDD gold investment opportunities to unsuspecting saps. Get lost. Occupy your toilet..
Bon is arguing for shame as a tool but started arguing against feelings as a source for direction. Sound contradictory? That is because you are arguing with a guy named john who has many user names and is mentally unstable. He comes here not to make a point but because he has extreme narcissism bordering on sociopath. Unless you feel the need to clutter the web with more garbage, please observe and asses before engaging any user in debate. Even if it's not as exciting, you will be doing the entire web a favor.
Why don't you tell that to everyone else on this thread who is arguing with him as well?
John?? @richardkentgates, you don't know what you're talking about.
The ads have yet to pay for the initial investment. I am currently focused on my new CMS, E1.1 and you left out my crappy Occupy The Web & The 99% - Buttons & Banners site. So since trolling forums is the most important thing you will ever do in your life, please don't mind me. Feel free to continue to be a psychopathic nothing.
You'll recover your initial investment when more suckers click on your criminal sponsors' ads. Get your facts straight before claiming to know about other posters. Go back to your "investment" in shilling gold, you phony radical
Let me see, you are one of those people that believes that life begins at conception. It doesn't. However, your belief makes this true.
What you have is boiled down to feelings. It isn't accurate.
The legal argument is that a fetus is not a person. It is a part of the woman's body, and what she does with her body is nobody's business but her own.
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Thank you. I spotted that flaw in the Declaration immediately. There is an incredible disconnect when a movement claiming to speak on behalf of the most vulnerable is silent on widespread slaughter of humans. When they explicitly condemn the murder of the guilty but freely accept destruction of innocent life, there is little reason to support the movement.
Look further, because it isn't the only flaw. The movement is based on blame of someone else for the perceived problems we face: "the 1%". In the history of humanity, blaming some "others" and demanding something be done about "them" is why sadly we incarcerated Japanese Americans during WWII, it is why Arizona and Alabama are hostile toward Latinos. The movement is as wrong headed as Pam Gellar and as immoral as the Klan. The last group with a twisted view of Wall Street and our Republic were rightly condemned as terrorists. Perhaps you remember them? They killed a few of my colleagues and fellow 'banksters' along with a bunch of cops.
Reread the Declaration of Occupation with a more critical eye. It blames nearly everyone else for the mess we are in besides ourselves. If we treat the wrong cause, we'll never arrive at the right cure.
@Kite, excellent observations
Exactly. Thank you
Mother Teresa said:
"The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want."
Bravo Bon Ton... this a superb topic.. And your logic is flawless. Ows is silent re the cruelest...most inhuman act.
a woman's freedom of choice shall not be impinged.
who are you? moses?
Right to choose.
If you do not want an abortion, then don't have one. No one owes you any further reasoning for that choice.
Do you follow that libertarian line on the 2nd Amendment/right to bear arms, too? I can almost hear you lecturing the gun control supporters: "Don't want a gun, then don't have one."
Actually, since you asked, the 2nd Amendment was not a Right for individuals until http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2009/2009_08_1521
It was at that point that the 2nd Amendment became incorporated. If you are unfamiliar with incorporation then you can locate a brief note on that here: http://www.usconstitution.net/consttop_bor.html
You didn't answer the question but maybe you did. Youre libertarian on abortion, but not on guns. BTW, since you're a Constitutional scholar, you must know that the right to abortion was invented in 1973.
I did answer your question. It doesn't matter how you feel about gun rights. They didn't become a right until the case I gave you. It wasn't an issue until the NRA funded a few scholarly articles by a few nitwits in the 1980s. It doesn't have anything to do with libertarians. It simply is.
BTW your right to privacy was invented in 1965 and 1973. Abortions themselves were not invented in 1973. They predate your libertarians. Underground abortions are making a comeback. There needs to be a safe, clean place for women that make that choice to receive medical treatment.
Almost correct. The right to contraceptive use by marital couples dates to 1965. The right to abortion was suddenly discovered by the least democratic branch of government in 1973. Those two rights, together with the more recently discovered right to sodomy (2003) make up the so-called "right to privacy." Libertarians such as you understandably cherish these rights, but libertarian philosophy has is limitations.
I'm not a libertarian. You know this.
i don't know what you are, but the abortion position you're espousing ("right to choose") is an absolutist libertarian one.
Should the state be able to regulate abortions of the potentially disabled, i.e., spina bifida? How about sex-selective abortions? How about abortions based on perceived sexual orientation?
As I said : both sides are arguing about two different things.your answer has nothing to do with the previous topic.
It has everything to do with this topic. Again, if you do not want to have an abortion then do not have one. It is pretty simple stuff.
Simple if you have your moral blinkers firmly in place, that is.
This is about reproductive rights. It is very simple. It isn't something that you get to make a decision on. Not now, not ever.
Slogans, slogans, we got plenty of slogans! that seems to be what OWS is all about. (You quite noticeably never answered the questions five posts above. I know, too hard.)
It isn't something that you get to make a decision on. Not now, not ever.
That is the answer. There isn't anything hard about it.
@GirlFriday -- So you have no problem whatsoever with sex-selective abortion, i.e., aborting females solely because they're females. Kind of barbaric to my way of thinking, but when you're a strict libertarian, I guess anything goes.
I don't have any problem with it, dumb ass. Now go find someone who wants to put up with your fucking stupidity.
you shouldn't have dropped out of high school. occupy a desk.
Awwe. You sorry fucking piece of worthless shit.
@GirlFriday, demonstrating your limitations again, eh? go back to school. acquire a vocabulary. be something.
@BonTon, do something moar besides instigate.
@GurlFried, I think I love you
@GirlFried, love you too but you're still a foul-mouthed cretin.
Now, stop using my posts to bring your ignorant thread to the top. Go find someone else to annoy. Shoo fly.
You are still a worthless piece of shit, a douchebag that serves no other purpose.
@GirlFriday; You think that's instigating? Trying to engage in dialogue, so this site might be something more than the juvenile joke and echo chamber that it is? Methinks you're the instigator, you foul-mouthed cretin
Awwwee, you're a fucktwit.
His name sums him up{Lard Head}