Run back through the thread (not about abortion) and count your posts (all about abortion). It is all you brother, you you you.
I'll take a rain check on over-simplistic emotional arguments, and not even step into why none of these terms is properly defined, especially in the legal sense.
It's practical, not political. You want women to have and care for children they do not want and aren't equipped to handle. Everything has a consequence. Women don't have abortions because they want to kill babies. They have them because they dont feel for whatever reason they can or want to raise a child. Why is your judgement or the state's judgement better than hers? If you want to outlaw abortion why don't conservatives support policies to give those women and their children a better opportunity to avoid disaster?
No, it is not he who is defining a baby as a meaningless clump of cells. It is you who is defining a clump of cells as a baby, which it is not. You call that a baby. That's the fundamental difference. It is not a baby. It is not a thinking self aware human being. Not by any scientific definition. There is no brain, no thought, no nervous system even. I am not sure anyone can even identify it as being human just from a photo like this. You want to call this a baby. Great go ahead. But I would rather the woman get to have her say in the matter.
Except for perhaps my first post, all subsequent posts on my part are direct responses to other postings which often-time quoted my post. Run your analysis again. This was your post (#37): My first post came in at #54...
What makes it a baby? Have you accounted for a soul? Does the DNA share traits of both the mother and father? No doubt it is not a functional human being but that doesn't mean it's not a human being.
That's a BS answer. Where do we put the 50million children/fetuses that were aborted since Roe v Wade and who pays for that?
I have a belief that doesn't require me to force my beliefs on other people and doesn't make me want to use the power of the state to force my own personal moral beliefs on every single woman in this country.
I say leave them at home and let the parents pay for their own children. Not everyone would be an adoption but adoption is an option. Remember, it's the parents' problem first and foremost.
Not everyone shares your personal, moral definition of "life," and nobody save pro-lifers believe that the clump of cells in a woman's uterus is a "child." Again, you are trying to force your PERSONAL, moral beliefs on other people, and no less than the Supreme Court of the United States has determined that women have the right to choose what happens in their own bodies. You aren't allowed to choose what goes on inside a woman's body, at all. If you and people like you poured as much time, energy, and money into reducing unwanted pregnancies as you do on this Quixotic battle in support of illegal abortions (which would be the end result of an abortion ban), you could ACTUALLY REDUCE THE NUMBERS OF ABORTIONS. Instead, you piss into the wind.
So you have no answer. They're taking personal responsibility for their mistake by having an abortion. You just prefer they take 18 years to take responsibility for their mistake and screw them if they can't handle it or afford it. That's what I figured. Thanks.
The thing you seem to be failing to see is that it isn't that "abortion is right," it is that banning abortion is wrong!
Soul is a religious belief. The DNA of every cell in your body has traits of both the month and father. Including the hair on your body. Your definitions of human being are arbitrary at best. Why aren't miscarriages counted as deaths? Why is there no funeral for a miscarriage? Obituary? You say the morning after pill is murder - based on what science and evidence? It's purely based on your religious beliefs. And while you are entitled to that, you can't put your beliefs on others who don't see it your way. I don't think a blastula is a baby. I find that to be ludicrous. A blastula is not a human being. IT's scary to think that people want to force women to have babies because they think a blastula is a human being. Shouldn't then the gov't intervene and make sure miscarriages don't occur? Control the diet and intake of a woman, what activities and monitor them carefully to ensure miscarriages are reduced??? That would be ridiculous. Look, I respect your beliefs, but I do not respect your effort to force those beliefs upon me and my loved ones.
In our society, the biggest consequence to banning abortion would be all the illegal abortions that would continue to be carried out. Illegal abortions were common back when you had to have a person with some level of medical knowledge performing the procedure. These days, people who manufacture and illegally import RU-486 would be the ones "performing" the abortions and people would be able to get them with little more difficulty than acquiring mar1juana, speed, or cocaine, which is to say not difficult at all. You would reduce abortion numbers a LOT more (in my opinion) if you began working on a campaign to teach the content of the book "Taking Charge of Your Fertility" to every girl beginning at age 11 or 12.
As to the original post, reminds me of the military, my first days in the Navy. I think I mentioned I vote Democrat when a group of dudes was talking up the Repubs or talking down the Dems. I certainly didn't criticize Reagan, even though in my youth I was mouthier then than now; but this was '88, he was my commander-in-chief, and to white people, he was God. The other dudes (also white, of course) looked at me like I'd grown an eye in my forehead. "Why do you vote Democrat?" Naturally the military is very conservative and there are plenty of preconceived notions about Democrats (as Dems often have notions about Repubs). Same thing when I was at my dad's a few years later. Election year. Phone rings. My dad bade me answer it (telemarketing was rampant then, caller ID, not so much): "This is so-and-so" (young guy, no more than 22, I could tell) "of the Whatever Republican Group....etc....throw those liberals" (say it like bigtexxx would) "out of Warshington" (Iowa: gotta say "warsh" not "wash").... "Uh, hold on, I'm not Vern, that's my dad" (registered Republican) "....and I'm a Democrat." Thunderclap silence. "Oh, okay. Out of curiosity, why do you vote Democrat? I mean, I'm just trying to understand." Very ingenue. He was young, like me, but it was clear he'd always been in "The Bubble": Dad votes Republican, Grampa voted Republican, small town Iowa, etc. But I do enjoy the memories. Make me smile a bit.
Total agreement with this overlooked gem of a post. Go Rimbaud, go Rimbaud, and go Johnny go, and do the watusi, oh do the watusi...
I don't think abortion should be outlawed, but I also don't believe it should be at the complete discretion of any parent regardless of any other factors. There are a huge range of circumstances in the world which necessitate abortion. Sometimes people have to get abortions to avoid getting executed or ending up in jail. There are a plethora of reasons why abortion may be necessary. Having said that, I don't believe that the time when someone discovers that they are pregnant and decide they don't want to be pregnant is the right time to make a sound decision about abortion. This is an erratic process, and I know people who have subsequently regretted their own decision deeply. You have other people in your ear, your conscience in your head, and a ticking time-fetus in your stomach - we shouldn't pretend that this is necessarily going to be a good decision. IMO we have a responsibility to give people a better education about the social aspects of this problem, ensure they know all their options, maximize the effectiveness of those options (such as adoption, which is handled terribly) and put some checks in place to ensure that the person aborting is of sound mind and knowledge to make the decision. All easier said than done and it's insincere of us (including me) to pretend that we all understand the complexities of this, especially given we are mostly guys on this board, and not all of us will have experienced dealing with this problem before. It's easy for a some guys to dictate that abortions should be allowed - this speaks to the insecurity of some men regarding having kids. The opposite is also easy for some - we are not the ones who have to deal with 9 months labor vs questioning whether abortion is ethical. I find it rather ironic that those who oppose abortions in the name of sanctity of life tend to support large wars where tens of thousands of civilians ("collateral damage") will inevitably end up dead. Overpopulation is probably a bigger threat than "terrorism" today anyway. I think when you have these inconsistent beliefs is when it becomes apparent that ideological beliefs are playing a big role in your decision making process, and that makes me very sad given how many starving, parent-less children there are in the world today, and some of them a direct result of war.
