Why does it have to be so black and white? Sometimes the mother's health is at stake and desperate times call for desperate measures. Why would it be so cut and dry? You honestly expect that all pro-life people should willingly advocate trying to pull a baby out of a bloodied corpse because they already hold a moronic position against "killing a baby" Sounds like your opinion is a little closed-minded there. Just a bad argument in general.
I suspect it could also be argued that abortion prevents advances in science, medicine, the arts, athletics, education, etc.
if i think abortion is murder and killing an innocent life, how could i reconcile thinking killing an innocent life was ok under other circumstances that aren't as convenient? someone has an abortion due to an unwanted pregnancy - murder someone has an abortion due to a rape - not murder? what makes abortion murder in one set of circumstances and not another? any way you slice it, an innocent life is being terminated.
But when you criticize me for taking a narrow stance or a wider stance you are. You are convinced by my pro-Life position? Let me ask you this: how can someone so opposed to abortion call themselves pro-Choice. We both have to live with the limitations of these labels but you only cast aspersions on my side of the argument. As I told Lscola, the medical-exception positions are found in the pro-Life camp as well as the pro-Choice, but I will never identify with the pro-Choice side of the argument as long as the law is so abusive of innocent lives. I am pro-Choice in a very limited scope. I think you are making major conjectures there. You don't know what anyone says or does about this or any other matter unless you shadow them. The facts bear out that most abortions are done for convenience rather than due to reasons associated with medical or criminal (rape, incest) issues. I don't want to make too grandiose a comparison here but I think of Ghandi. He encouraged non-violence but subjecting his supporters to violence. The marched right into the range of rifle butts being swung by British soldiers. He knew that if they just kept coming and coming and coming, the humanity of the British soldiers would overtake the orders they were under. I know I come off as, shall we say, brusque, in these discussions but it is my conviction to just tell the plain truth as I see it about what is at stake. If somebody gets riled up they are more likely to search their heart and it is my hope that something might change. I know I could just stay out of it, but I would consider that cowardly on my part. I've seen all four of my children born and those babies being aborted are no less lovely and amazing than my own. Someone just has to love them long enough to let them breathe their first breath and somehow, someone will provide for that child. It doesn't have to be the birth mother, although that's what God intended. Killing that child is never what God intended.
Perhaps not, but that's a subjective calculation that only the woman and her doctor(s) are qualified to make. What about a single woman who can't afford even the pregnancy (medical costs, time off work, etc.)? What about women who can't psycologically endure a pregnancy? There are very real costs to pregnancy and adoption, costs you can't just sweep under the rug as the price a woman has to pay for her poor decision. As it happens, this is also a social justice issue. Wealthy women with strong family and social support are much less likely to need abortion services than those less well off. It's easy for people to cast stones when they are not faced with these potentially devastating decisions. Yes I do, and I think awareness of that fact is growing. So does that mean you are against criminalizing abortion?
Again I think you're garbling the very definition of "murder" by trying to make it so bifurcated. I don't personally believe it is murder vs no murder issue anyway. My view is more like this... someone has an abortion due to an unwanted pregnancy - harsh solution to a problem that could have been avoided. someone has an abortion due to rape/mother's health at risk - A harsh solution to a problem that could not have been avoided. What we need is more social awareness, more sex education, and more programs to help young mothers. I'm not here to call anybody a baby-killer.
I don't disagree... but when the kitchen is on fire, you don't hold a fire prevention class. I gotta say hogwash on the "unavoidable biological impulse." I didn't have sexual intercourse until I was married. If I abstained, anyone can. I've always had (and still have) a strong libido. I've had sex thousands of times. My wives got pregnant almost immediately once we started trying to make babies. What I am trying to say here is that I am a great candidate for an unplanned pregnancy. I never had one. We used birth control. I know that birth control fails from time to time but I think it is way exaggerated.
In that case, I owe you an apology. I pretty much come to the table with the assumption that someone who is staunchly "pro-life" is advocating for a ban on abortions. I am sorry that I misunderstood your position. Yeah, that is an easy one. Yes, the fetus is innocent, but the circumstances are such that it would be cruel not to allow those women the choice. I wish there were more pro-lifers like you. The ultimate goal should be a drastic reduction in the number of abortions performed. I would not be opposed to a ban on late term abortions and would further expand the definition of "late term" to anything after 14 or 15 weeks, with a couple of caveats. First, the mother's physical health should override any restrictions. Second, in the circumstance that the pregnancy will result in a severely handicapped or deformed child, the mother should be able to choose. If abortion is the chosen option, the choice should be made as early as possible in the process. Honestly, it is too big for mine as well. I would love to get some reasonable restrictions on the books, particularly with regards to late term abortions, but it has been my experience that prohibition does not work and that is true no matter what you are trying to prohibit. I know now that you are not fighting for such a ban, but if the bulk of the pro-life lobby had their druthers, a ban would be in place and that would create a much worse situation than we have now. We need more people like you to help drive the discussion in a productive way, towards programs and actions that reduce unwanted pregnancies. I would do everything possible to keep my wife from having an abortion now, but that is very different from believing that my personal opinion on abortion should be forced on someone who does not share my morals and values. FWIW, I would inject the monster in your hypothetical myself, provided we had 100% solid DNA evidence proving that he was the one that committed the act. So, if we were to do some things to make contraception more available in order to reduce unwanted pregnancies, you would be on board with that (particularly making the "morning after" pill OTC)? Serious, honest education about sex, pregnancy, and reproduction would also go a long way, given the misinformation that is relayed to our young people in high schools. I agree with you that abortion is the absolute worst method of birth control and more should be done to reduce unwanted pregnancies, which would in turn reduce abortions.
I should have been more specific: when I say "health" of the mother, I really mean life and death issues for the mother as deemed by her medical caregivers.
Good points and my apologies if I misrepresented your position. I am speaking in general and in general the Pro-Life side, again accepting your definition, comes off as absolutist regarding a ban. Good point and I think there is room for compromise. Where that point is though I'm not sure I could say myself at the moment. I will agree with you that we are playing fast and loose with these terms regarding pro-life and pro-choice. As far as whether we are talking about valuing the life of a baby vs. a scumbag I am not so certain at what point an embryo or fetus is a baby. It goes back to the old question of whether an acorn is an oak tree. The issue of the scumbag isn't exactly pro-life IMO but more of a question of the imperfection of the judicial system and the application of Constitutional rights. This is a tangent as I understand many of the Pro-Life side make an argument regarding rights of the unborn. As the Constitution stands though it explicitly states that rights are granted to those born. I accept that many of the Pro-Life side are very aware of how agonizing a decision abortion this is yet even here we are seeing demonization of women for getting abortions for lifestyle reasons such as saying that women are doing so they can fit into prom dresses. You yourself are stating that the statistics say they are doing so for lifestyle reasons and I don't see the reason for bringing that up accept to demonize the women for doing so. Lifestyle reasons cover a variety of issues ranging from the frivolous (fitting into a prom dress) to severe economic hardship. Having dated a woman who had an abortion for what was considered a lifestyle reason (FYI I wasn't the father and didn't know her very well at the time that she did) I can tell you that it wasn't an easy or frivolous decision. I totally agree there shouldn't be abortions for frivolous reasons, there shouldn't be abortions for economic reasons either, still its a fact that abortions will happen for a variety of reasons. Given that I would rather have them out in the open and legal. Under the present context of the debate that puts me in the Pro-Choice camp.
Let's camp out here. We can have all sorts of dogmatic arguments about when Junior is a collection of cells and when he's a life worthy of legal protection...those are swell arguments for people who live in bubbles...and i've made those arguments for years and years of my life. But for those of you who are pro-life and represent the Church in any way, shape or form....YOUR BATTLE IS RIGHT FREAKING HERE WHERE LSCOLADOMINATES JUST DROPPED IT. (if that doesn't describe you, you might want to stop reading --- or at least don't think i'm asking you to apply it to yourself). I can't change the hearts of those on the Supreme Court....but I can damn sure help someone who is struggling with this issue personally. I can be a friend...and yeah, that might ask some resources of me beyond just writing a check...or beyond just giving time (whichever you're most comfortable, you should probably stretch into the other - and no, that's not easy). So for that one woman and that one child, you can be the person who says, "i'll help you...whatever it takes." And for the Church, you can be that group of people saying, "We'll help you...whatever it takes." Form clinics where women can receive free medical care during the term of her pregnancy....start job training groups for women in that spot....assist in finding affordable child day care, or better yet, find a way to provide affordable child day care....and whatever other amazing, creative idea you can come up with that might demonstrate you genuinely love people because you've been transformed by God. All this opposed to throwing venom at people...to shooting abortion doctors....moving to actually seeking to resemble the God we say we serve who says umpteen million times that He wants you to care for the poor and for THEIR concerns....that He wants you to die to yourself (and your own desires), so that you might know what it is to truly live. That He calls you to be a light to the world....to ease its burden in the same way He eased yours. THAT is how the Church can have FARRRRRRR greater impact than screaming platitudes at political rallies and going home to live behind gated communities.
Was there a reduction in technological advancements in the 1990s that paralleled the 40% drop in crime?
Your point is not a good one. It seems like you're trying to paint everyone in the pro-life camp as if they should all be ignorant absolutists. Many of them are, but maybe I just don't understand why you're trying to lump everyone in that camp. Taking one zero-tolerance stance has never been a good idea.
I'm all for reducing casual abortion-- relative to the child not the mother. Having been the husband through four pregnancies, I know that pregnancy is not casual! I wouldn't say I'm against criminalizing abortion, though but neither am I against criminalizing reckless driving or unlawful protests. The word "criminalizing" is loaded here. Of course, you know that.
Andy, be careful - that study has received a great deal of controversy from statisticians. from wiki:
People commit crimes so if we have mandatory universal abortion eventually there will be no crime. No people no problem...
