I posit that any pro-lifers out there HAVE to vote in favor of health care covering contraceptives and to promote welfare. You want to reduce abortions and/or force women to have children? Fine. Open up your wallet for the tax $$, otherwise quit b****ing. Personally, I think it's a silly argument in the first place because 1) I support women's' rights and it's CERTAINLY NOT an easy decision for them to abort a child, and one that will haunt them anyway so the last thing they need is further criticism from the peanut gallery. 2) Roe v. Wade was in the 70s. Do people really think we'll get less progressive in 2014 onward? Get real, people. And this is coming from an uncle with three beautiful nieces who I would take a bullet for. Just because I love children doesn't mean I have to let my emotions stand in the way of reason.
Good post. While the Catholic Church has a lot of other issues I will give them credit that while they oppose abortion and contraception they have also provided for services to help poor people raise children and have supported things like aid to women and children. What bothers me more are people who oppose abortion but also oppose things that might prevent more abortions by making it easier to bring children to term and raise them.
Mine was the translation from the original Latin from where the word was chosen and has ironically been used to beat back Pro-Lifers. It's an affectionate translation not a clinical one.
PURITANICAL? There you go again with the low blows. My statement was absolutely MATTER OF FACT. So you are equating abortion with getting high? I think the pro-Life mindset is more like "you never had the right to kill the child within you for whatever reason you think sufficient." Does "fetus" mean something more akin to "little one" or "mass of cells" as it was initially used to describe that particular state of life? A fetus will always turn out as a human baby (even if stillborn it is/was human) whereas one can only theorize that a fetus was at any point in time just a mass of cells. Round and round. I understand your point. Do you understand mine? Your arbitrary proclamation of a right is more FINAL (unto Death) than mine.
In all fairness, what's the difference between contraception and early-term abortion to you? Isn't the prevention of sperm from entering the egg suffocating a potential life? Look, I get the ugliness of abortion and of course it's not a pleasant procedure and I don't like the idea of it either, if we're being genuine. However, using logic, I can see the necessity for them in rare circumstances. Just because two teens drink a little too much one night and forget to slip on a condom, should we really jeopardize their future and the potential child's future/sense of belonging? I care immensely more about the people who are living and breathing on this Earth than I do the 'potential' of a fully-functioning human. Keep it in the first trimester, I agree, but keep it legal for gosh sake. It's not an easy or popular decision and can often be a very sobering one for kids who aren't living on the straight and narrow. Forcing them to have an unwanted child doesn't do anyone much good.
No, your statement judged people who have sex and either don't use contraception or for whom contraception didn't work. To you, those women should be absolutely required to bring a fetus to term and bear it, based on your morals and values, regardless of her own. No, I am equating a federal ban on abortion to the federal ban on drug use, which we all know has been a resounding success. Yes, it is one where you get to tell another person what they can and cannot do with their body. It means an unborn [insert animal name here]. In this case, "unborn human" would also be a reasonable descriptor. However, you keep wanting to use the word "baby," which is unreasonable. Assuming the pregnancy goes well, a human fetus will gestate into a human baby, no doubt. However, you have no right to tell a woman how to manage her pregnancy. NONE As I have paraphrased all of your points, I believe I have clearly shown that I understand your point. However, your rights, as a rule, don't extend far out from your own person. They certainly don't extend to another person's pregnancy, save perhaps the biological father. You simply don't have the right to dictate what someone else does with their body, period.
There was no judgment. You enter into an action that might create a new life then you are responsible for that action and that new life. We have all kinds of laws which restrict us; quit making like this would be the only one. A ban on rape hasn't worked perfectly either; should we drop that? Any other nastiness you want to liberate? It's about valuing innocent lfe. The fetus has a body too and someone is tromping all over his/her right to life. The Latin means what the Latin means, try as you might to undermine it. "Little one" "offspring" Exactly how is "baby" unreasonable.. other than YOU don't like it? Only the absolutes and it is human as a fetus-- all kinds of individual characteristics already established all along the way. Paraphrased? How about DISTORTED! I can accept your premise that I am interfering (almost all of our laws interfere with someone who would like to do something different), but you won't touch mine that the fetus has a right to life. Now which of us is really being unreasonable?
It is a judgement. She has sex and you think that entitles you to force your moral beliefs on her. You don't. Based on the evidence, unlike laws where it is absolutely clear that a living, breathing person's rights have been violated (rape, robbery, murder, assault), the drug war has made the problem worse in many ways and better in none. An abortion ban would be directly analogous, particularly since under such a ban, I would assume that most abortions would be carried out with RU-486, which would be traded on the black market just like currently illicit psychoactive drugs. More women would die, all because you want to ban a medical procedure. I value the woman's ACTUAL life over the fetus' POTENTIAL life. You don't get to decide for another person when "life" begins, nor do you get to decide when the fetus' rights trump the woman's. She gets to make that choice, get your nose out of her uterus. As long as it cannot survive outside the woman's womb, it has no rights, at least in my mind. I don't get to force my beliefs on others either, so ultimately, the fetus' rights are completely and solely determined by the woman in whom it is gestating, as it should be. Because a necessary component of the word "baby" is that it must be born. ba·by ˈbābē/ noun noun: baby; plural noun: babies 1. a very young child, especially one newly or recently born. "his wife's just had a baby" synonyms: infant, newborn, child, tot, little one; More Which ultimately matters not as long as it is in the woman's womb. While that is the case, she has all of the right to decide what happens in her body. You're welcome to believe I have distorted things, but I am just accurately characterizing your positions, it isn't my fault that your points don't have any merit. Because it doesn't, until the woman decides she wants to bring it to term and bear it. You are, of course.
You callled my being factual Puritanical; you called my being logical judgmental. I can embrace your premise but disagree with it. You must denigrate my premise to win the argument... and you think I am the one IMPOSING my views on the matter? Priceless! BTW, you even admit that it is only your opinion and not certitude. So, in effect, it's okay for you to decide when life begins but not for me. Regarding BABY, "especially one recently born" does not make being born mandatory for being called baby. My point on the whole "fetus" definition was that long ago the medical community SELECTED a word that was more intimate than clinical but you think it is clinical and use it thusly. Anyone know the Latin term for "clump of cells"?
I called your being Puritanical and judgmental exactly what they were. In your opinion, simply making the choice to have sex should require a woman to bring an unwanted fetus to term and bear it, based on your own personal belief system. You are judging her for having sex and sentencing her to motherhood because you have a problem with the choice she is faced with should her chosen method of contraception fail. Your premise can't possibly be denigrated any further, you are trying to assert control of another person's pregnancy, which is odious at best. Because that's what is happening. Nobody is forcing women to have abortions they don't want, but you seem to think you have the right to force your own personal beliefs on someone else. You are trying to impose your morality on someone else. No, it is okay for the woman in whose womb the fetus is developing to decide when it qualifies as "life" for her. It is not okay for you or I or anyone but that specific woman to make the determination for her. Bull****, that is exactly what it means. I use it because it is the appropriate descriptor. You use "baby" because it is inflammatory and introduces emotion into the discussion.
You can write tons of words all you want giddy, but Andy is right...when it comes down to the nitty gritty, YOU do not have the right to decide what happens in another persons life. Religious types always seem to miss the part where society does not default to their morality. I dont think people should do it either, but I dont have the temerity to believe that others should follow my moral compass when it comes to what happens with their lives..
1. Our laws set moral boundaries it all the time. Why not protect the most innocent? We protect women from rapists and all people from murder, assault or battery. How do you find the temerity to stand up for those folks? You do, you know, with your support of those laws. 2. I adhered to pro-Life views 10 years before I became a person of faith. My ex-wife and I were asked to join a pro-Choice demonstration in the early 1980s. We talked about it and decided against it. It was almost 10 years before I started attending a church. You can't just dismiss the argument on grounds of religious zealotry. I am hardly that-- even now.
^ Leave all the religious aspect out of it, and with just being INHUMAN, it's wrong completely. There are only some factors or medical reasons for stopping something like a 'birth' from happening.
I'm asserting the protection of the unborn. So you are stating that one cannot denigrate "any further" than to assert that a fetus is a human life?
Unless you are Rick Santorum, in which case you parade your dead child around like a key chain and scar your living children by having a good ole fashion family "pray in" while playing "pass the baby".
I want giddyup to reply to either of my previous posts. I think I've soundly defended the pro-choice argument.
