Texas liberals shamefully protest Perry's measures to safeguard women's health

You're the one that brought up it being nobody's business what somebody else is doing if it is legal, which isn't really true.

Plenty of things are defined as legal that shouldn't be. You just happen to think abortion, even late term should be legal.

 

I'm not religious. My feelings on the subject have to do with my moral values, not religion. To me it is a human being.

 

Just because it is called a fetus does not mean it is not a human. It is in the fetal state of a human development, as an infant is in the infant stage of human development, and an adolescent is in the adolescent stage of human development. We continue to grow until we are what, 22-23? So are we not humans until we have stopped developing? How is a someone with unique human DNA NOT a human being?

We simply do not agree on when a human life begins. I don't think 20 weeks is unreasonable, I think when you are risking life, you should be conservative in your estimate.

You aren't taking away these women's choice, they still have the choice to make better decisions, they still have the opportunity to abort by 20 weeks, is it THAT ridiculous that people want to cut the current time from 24 to 20 weeks considering the advancement in medically technology that has allowed us to save premature babies as young as 20 weeks?

Have you SEEN an abortion? Have you seen someone literally squeeze forceps to crush a fetus' calcified skull? Ripping the limbs, one by one...Have you seen pictures and video of this? I have, unfortunately (I hate when people say, "don't look at this", or "don't touch the plate, it's hot").

Not every woman supports abortion on demand. So it is disingenuous for people to call this a war on women.

 

The people who support these types of bills and sit here and call themselves pro-life are the same ones who support cutting any kind of aid to children of low income families, cutting education spending left and right, and fighting tooth and nail against people having access to affordable healthcare.

It seems that once someone is born, the pro-lifers care for them due to their morals goes right out the window. I think describing them as "pro-fetal-lifers" would be more accurate.

 

You paint with a broad brush.

 

Do you think everyone who is pro life should support this bill?

 

Not necessarily. This clearly isn't the answer.

Congress or the courts would have to affect change at the National level for a positive outcome.

 

This is such a weird argument. It drives me crazy.

If you are against murder does that mean you can't oppose any social programs that benefit a human that might have been murdered?

I agree that supporting those programs you mentioned is a GOOD thing, but just because you don't support them doesn't mean you need to be OK with, in that person's mind at least, murder.

 

If you're going to use murder as your counter example there's really no point to the discussion. Having said that, my point is that the people who pass these bills and fight in support of them and also wage a constant war against planned parenthood (who does provide many valuable services that are not abortion-related) then turn around and support political agendas that seem (to me at least) to go directly against the principle of being pro-life. And that, along with the fact that they seem to be against, or maybe just ignoring, other types of practical solutions, makes me believe that these types of bills are nothing but politics as usual.

 

If a fetus is a life and you voluntarily decide to kill it, what would you call it?

That's how a pro-life person sees it. You don't see it that way and that's your right. You want to call it terminating a pregnancy but they see it as killing a living thing.

First of all, people are generally low information about anything beyond the biggest and easiest to understand issues, so what they support outside of those is of little relevance. As for whether they support things that go against the principles of being pro-life, you are making that determination because YOU, as a NON-PRO LIFE person are deciding what a PRO-LIFE person should have as their principles.

 

That is the dumbest excuse for being in favor of the legal murder of millions of humans. Just because they want these programs reformed (considering nearly half the country is receiving some kind of benefit from the government, so that those who ACTUALLY need these programs can ACTUALLY receive them), does not mean they are want to cut any aid to children of low income families. There have been plenty of bills by Republicans that have addressed welfare with the explicit intent of ensuring that children still received necessary benefits. It's the PARENTS they are trying to stop from receiving benefits they don't need. Do you actually believe all of those people need welfare, SNAP, CHIP, free and reduced lunches, etc.? Have you SEEN the kids who get free lunches at school? They come in with new shoes, new clothes, new backpack, but THEY CAN'T AFFORD $1.35 LUNCH? Parents need to get their priorities straight and stop worrying about ensuring their kid is the most popular.

And they aren't fighting tooth and nail to ensure people have health care, once again do some research and you will see Republicans in Texas have introduced and passed many bills related to expanding health coverage. They just don't think what the federal government is doing is the correct way (as is becoming obvious), they also didn't want to pump 100 billion dollars into a broken system that less and less doctors were accepting (Medicaid). Without addressing the underlying issues in these programs, pumping money doesn't do ****! Same thing with education, pumping money into ISDs does not do **** because the school districts refuse to allow them to have any say in where the money goes.

You should also know that research has shown more REPUBLICANS have given to charities and various organizations that assist those in needs than Democrats, see "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism," by Syracuse professor Arthur C. Brooks. Put your money where your mouth is. Regardless, it is no excuse for allowing this brutal and barbaric procedure to take place in the 21st century. A CHANCE is better than NO chance.

 

The more this country becomes "Democrats vs Republicans" the more we go down hill.

 

That's all you have to decide right there.

 

Whenever I find myself in an extended argument about abortion I find that there are about six arguments I can expect to encounter before the argument has come to term, so to speak. But, fortunately, the six arguments all suffer from one fatal flaw, which makes them somewhat easy to rebut as long as the proponent of life stays focused on the central moral question of the abortion debate, which is “Are the unborn human?”

I’ve listed the six arguments – in no particular order of importance – along with specific common-sense rebuttals to each. I hope they will be helpful to those who wish to defend the weakest among us (the unborn person) against those who wish to deny their humanity (the already born who cannot be aborted).

1. “It’s my body, my choice”. This argument is extremely easy to dismantle because the unborn baby has its own distinct genetic code that is generating growth from conception. Not only is there unique DNA but in 100% of abortions the baby already has a detectable heartbeat. Doctors will not even perform abortions until six or seven weeks into the pregnancy – in order to protect the health of the mother. The doctor wants to be able to account for and remove all of the baby’s body parts. If some small portion of the baby remains in the mother it could cause a deadly infection. The irony is lost among most of these so-called health care professionals.

So the woman who says “my body, my choice” is in the absurd position of arguing that she has two noses, four legs, two brains, two skeletal systems, and on average one testicle and half a penis. This kind of absurdity requires no further elaboration. It is nothing more than feminist foot stomping to assert the “my body, my choice” argument. In fact, it is unbecoming of anyone above the age of two who is similarly inclined to argue “my toy, my toy.”
2. “Back alley abortions will increase if abortion is illegal.” This argument simply assumes, like the first, that the unborn are not persons. If they were not then the abortion choice advocate would be in the awkward position of arguing that someone has a right to commit murder in a safe and sterile environment. This hardly survives the straight-face test. But if, for some reason, your opponent can’t see its absurdity tell him the following: I’m planning to rob the Wells Fargo Bank across the street but there is fungus all over the sidewalk. I’m afraid I might slip and fall during my escape. Could you call them and tell them to power-wash the sidewalk some time before I commit the robbery? And hurry up. I need the cash!

They may try to lie at this point and say that when abortion was illegal 10,000 women died per year using coat-hangers on themselves in back alleys. But those numbers are both false and irrelevant. Within a few years after abortion rights were constitutionalized the number of annual abortions went up at least six fold – and that is a very conservative estimate. That means over a million more babies were killed per year within just a few years after Roe v. Wade (compared with pre-Roe numbers). The fact that they were killed in a sterile, well-lighted environment did not make them any less dead. Please review argument #1.

3. “It is wrong to force a woman to bring an unwanted baby into the world.” Put simply, there is no such thing as an “unwanted baby.” If a baby is unwanted by its mother there is always, and I mean always, someone else who would want to adopt the baby. People cannot easily adopt in the country because so many children are unnecessarily aborted. But there is something even more sick and twisted about the “unwanted baby” excuse; namely that it insinuates that abortion prevents child abuse. But we have already established that abortion is child abuse. Please review argument #1 before reading further.

The very idea that we would murder children to prevent child abuse, which usually takes the form of simple battery, elevates intellectual laziness to a Zen art. It is the intellectual equivalent of promoting arson in order to prevent burglary. It is true that burglary will go down when we burn down everyone’s house but by now you get the point. And hopefully the pro-abortion choice advocate gets the point, too.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that abortion has not been an effective means of stopping child abuse (even if we exclude abortions). In 1973, there were 167,000 reported instances of child abuse. By 1982, reported instances of child abuse rose to 929,000. That is an increase of over 500 percent in less than a decade. When will so-called liberals take responsibility for this unmitigated disaster?

4. “It is wrong for a woman to be forced to bring a handicapped baby into the world.” It is frequently suggested that abortion is morally permissible when doctors discover, prior to birth, that a baby suffers from certain physical handicaps – such as Down’s syndrome or cerebral palsy. My response usually goes something like this:

“I agree that there are far too many handicapped people in the world. Every summer I take busloads of people who are wheelchair-bound on a trip to the Grand Canyon. We enjoy the view for a few minutes before I roll them off the edge of the Canyon. They are usually dead long before they hit the bottom. That is a good thing for them and for society as a whole. It is better to be dead than to be handicapped. Their lives are not worth living whether they realize it or not”

This provokes a strong reaction – as it should. After all, I am accusing the abortion choice advocate of gross insensitivity. That is usually when they argue that they are not killing a handicapped person but rather preventing a handicapped person from ever being born. Please review argument #1. Your opponent is trapped once again.

The last time I gave this speech, a handsome, intelligent, and athletic 6’2 African American student approached me and said the following: “I was misdiagnosed with cerebral palsy before I was born. The doctors were wrong. I am so glad my mother had me. Thank you for your speech.”
Argument #5: “It is wrong for a woman to be forced to give birth to a baby she cannot afford.” This argument is also remarkably calloused – so much so that it is difficult to understand how those who make it could describe themselves as “liberal.” Do we really need to start reassigning Jonathan Swift’s Modest Proposal to understand how profoundly sick and distasteful this argument really is? Swift wrote (satirically, of course) a proposal that suggested people eat their babies in order to relieve hunger and poverty. Pro-abortion choice arguments often sound chillingly similar.

For those who have never read Swift, I like to use a more contemporary example. In the 80s, a punk rock band calling themselves “The Dead Kennedys” wrote a song called “Kill the Poor” in which they mockingly suggested that we kill poor people as a means of eliminating poverty. That would certainly eliminate poverty. But is that really an acceptable solution? Of course, it isn’t. That was their point.

Make sure to confront abortion choice advocates with the question of whether it is permissible to kill to eliminate poverty. When you do, they will say something like this: “No, I would never advocate killing the poor. I would advocate abortion to prevent them from becoming poor people in the first place.” They are trapped once again in the untenable position of denying the personhood of the unborn. (Please review argument #1 from the first installment in this series).

Of course, there is another aspect to the poverty-as-a-defense-of-abortion argument. It is the crass argument that the mother sometimes cannot “afford” the baby. This raises another fundamental question: “Is it permissible to kill a person in order to alleviate financial stress?” If it is then I’d like to kill the banker who holds my mortgage. (I’m just kidding, folks). Of course, I cannot do that anyway since a) he is a middle-aged man and b) the Supreme Court does not authorize abortions in the 200th trimester – at least they haven’t yet!

Some pro-lifers will say that poor women should not be having babies if they cannot “afford” them. But this raises another important question: What if the poor woman’s baby is the product of a rape?

Argument #6: “It is wrong to force a woman to give birth to a baby after she has been a victim of rape (or incest, which is usually statutory rape).” Whenever I hear an argument for the rape exception I think of my friend Laura. She was adopted and later in life (when she was in her 20s) wanted to locate her birth mother and learn of the circumstances of her adoption. When she did, she learned that she was the product of a rape. I don’t have the audacity to tell her she should have been killed by an abortionist. I leave that to the compassionate liberals who over-simplify the rape issue.

Actually, “oversimplify” is too kind a term. They are exploiting the rape issue in order to avoid the central question of the debate: “Is the unborn - yes, even the product of rape - human?” I say “Of course they are!” And Laura agrees with me. If you disagree, then you may take it up with her or with others conceived in rape such as attorney and pro-life advocate Rebecca Kiessling. Their lives are hardly useless. And because their mothers had the courage to bear them, they have made a profound difference in this world – including saving countless lives with their pro-life testimony.

Whenever the issue of the rape exception is raised it is well worth mentioning Kennedy v. Louisiana, which was decided by the Supreme Court in 2008. In that already infamous case, the Court spared Kennedy from execution on the grounds that it would be Cruel and Unusual Punishment to kill a man who did not kill anyone. This was a brutal rape case – indeed among the worst I’ve ever studied. An expert in pediatric forensic medicine testified that Kennedy raped his 8-year old stepdaughter savagely to the point of causing permanent physical damage. In fact, a laceration to the left wall of her vagina had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into her vaginal structure. Put simply, Kennedy raped, sodomized, and tortured a poor little girl he was supposed to protect. Thankfully, he was easily convicted for doing so. And there is no question whatsoever as to the issue of his guilt.

But the High Court – high on their own arrogance - stated that Kennedy’s execution would not comport with “evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” This decision rested largely on the fact that most states reject the idea of execution for rape – even the rape of a child accompanied by other aggravating factors. And so this is the position in which we find ourselves today: When a woman is raped she has a constitutional right to an abortion. And the rapist has a constitutional right to life. But the unborn baby has no rights whatsoever. And they call this the mark of an “evolving” and “maturing” society?

The Kennedy case helps us to better understand another frequently employed argument for the rape exception; namely, that a woman has a right to abort in order to rid her of the memory of a horrible event. But that argument is both logically and factually flawed. Logically speaking, the woman, if granted the right to kill one person, should be entitled to kill the rapist. She should not be entitled to kill the baby! Any assertion to the contrary can be justified only by denying the personhood of the unborn. (Once again, review argument #1).

Factually speaking, there is simply no merit to the argument that abortions either sooth the conscience or assuage the memory of rape victims. In the first place, too many women feel guilty and blame themselves in the aftermath of rape. The abortion adds another layer of guilt and trauma. Only the birth of the child can provide healing – even if the child is immediately given up for adoption. Philosophers Peter Kreeft and Frank Beckwith often point out that it is better to suffer evil than to inflict it. Planned Parenthood counselors are never inclined to raise this point. They profit from the infliction of evil upon the innocent. And they use rape victims to justify their dirty occupation.

After I have finished making all the points I wish to make, I always extend the following offer to the abortion choice advocate: “If I agree to write the exception for rape, will you be willing to lobby for the law banning abortion?” In all of my years discussing abortion, no one has taken me up on the offer. Their reaction always shows that they were never in favor of keeping abortion legal in order to protect victims of rape. They are simply using these women for political purposes.

A movement that both denies the personhood of the defenseless unborn and uses rape victims for political purposes is not one worth joining. These people do not even believe the arguments they are making. They are truly modern day Pharisees – more deserving of our ridicule than our respect.

 

That's what the core of the entire abortion argument comes down to. That's why I said there was no point to the discussion if that's your example to use to argue against it. We just disagree on that.

It's of relevance to me because the inconsistencies make me question the true intent of bills such as these. And you're right, I did probably assume too much by thinking that being pro-life would mean that someone would support a better quality of life for human beings once they are born.

 

If I had been aborted in the womb, I wouldn't care.

 

Legal definitions change all the time, cultural changes in opinions and morals, scientific changes, legal changes. Our laws and culture are an evolving system, once again I draw the parallel of segregation, the majority once found this morally acceptable. Educators, politicians, lawyers had set the precedent that this was what was best. Why is it not so today? As for pre-natal care and other free support for new mothers, well I have two things to say about that...
1) We are free people, that means we are free to make mistakes too, and we must live with the consequences of our mistakes. If that means working your ass doubly hard to provide care for your children, so be it. If you can't afford children, you shouldn't be having them, and you didn't come to that realization in the 4 weeks that you no longer will be able to make that decision (24 weeks to 20 weeks).
2) Texas added $100 MILLION into women's health programs, and made sure to allow benefits to continue to children in the other bills they filed regarding entitlement benefits. Women can STILL receive funding from Texas if they don't provide abortions. It is not the state of Texas' responsibility to FUND abortions. They are already doing what they can and providing funds for women's HEALTH CLINICS, which by the way, they can still provide all of these wonderful programs AND receive tax dollars IF they are unable to upgrade to the standards set by this bill.

It is ridiculous to me that people continue to use this line as justification for supporting the late-term abortions.

 

Then you need to effort to change the legal definition in the Supreme Court. Until that time, it is the functional definition and the laws of the States are subject to it.

And remember, I think abortions are a terrible idea, but we have to live the laws we have until they are changed.

 

I don't see much support for late term abortions outside of being for medical reasons. 20 weeks is actually a very reasonable time frame that was set out in this bill, at least to me. The problem is, you think that an all out ban of abortion is the answer. Banning abortions is not going to stop people from having abortions, it's going to cause people to attempt to have illegal abortions in worse conditions. There are much more practical solutions to saving lives than making it completely illegal. Do you think that the answer to solving gun violence is to ban guns? I'm guessing not.

 

But it's a human embryo and human fetus right?