OK, naturally I take umbrage at the prospect of testing women for such a thing (you conservative guys are all about quashing 'big government' except when it comes to invading women's privacy, right?), but were you aware that the morning after pill is merely several normal birth control pills taken at once? Pretty hard to make that illegal, folks. By the way, the rhythm method is *not* more reliable than the Pill. All those Catholics using it seem to have more problems limiting family size than those of us relying on other methods. God, Mrs. JB rocks. She gets to remain calm and reasoned while I get peeved. So, um, yeah, what she said!
Anyone who came in for symptoms that can be side effects - excessive bleeding, etc. Attempted abortion, I guess, would be like attempted murder.
That's an excellent point. Also, SM's proposal makes the assumption that doctors will know what women are pregnant. But the vast majority of women find out from home pregnancy tests -- no doctor involved. So that would lead to the prospect of testing ALL women of reproductive age for pregnancy every month. No country on the planet does that -- especially not the one superpower that prides itself on democracy and individual liberty. Treating more than half of the country's population like potential criminals and subjecting them to monthly invasive tests is certainly not the best method for right-to-life groups to advance their message.
Naturally those types of tests would have to be made illegal. And I think daily tests are much more prudient idea. Come on StupidMoniker, back me up on this. The State has just got to know of an unborn's existence within 24 hours of contraception.
So my wife who had excessive bleeding thoughout her 1st pregnancy and was on bed rest for 6 months trying to keep from losing the baby, under your guidlines, would have been held against her will and subjected to testing to see if she was trying to abort the baby!?!? Then if she had lost the baby would have possibly been tried for attemped murder? Stupid- Your total disregard for personal liberty, freedom, and rights is shocking. I would doubt from your posts that you are married, but if you are I hope your wife uses her votes to cancel your vote out since you seem to have a lack of respect for women and women's rights in general.
Here here! Mandatory womb minicams in all women, installed tomorrow, monitored 24 hours a day for the rest of their lives! Sounds expensive, but if you link each minicam to the web, plenty of vingilant folks can keep track! The technology is here, and this is a reasonable way to keep track of new citizens in an up-to-the-minute way. A Vagina minicam could take images to help immediately determine paternity after all men are required to have police line-up style images of their members taken. Sign me up!
I never said anything about pregnancy testing. I don't know why you would need any prgnancy test for my proposal, that was posted, imo out of left field, by Mrs. JB. I only said that when their was probable cause (ie. symptoms consistent with drug induced abortions), a drug test could be administered. The same way that a test for alchohol could be administered after a collision. I don't see that as a women's rights issue at all, presupposing that abortions were already made illegal. Would that mean that you consider women as having the right to disregard the law? VooDoo, You are correct sir, in that I am single. You could not be more wrong when you guess that I have a lack of respect for women. I think women are the single greatest creation of God. I only have a lack of respect for those people, both male and female, that would terminate the life of their own child. I think people like Andrea Yates are horrible, and I think that anyone who has an abortion is right along the same lines as her. I cannot think of a more dispicable thing to do than to take an innocent life, excpet perhaps to try to make and keep it legal to do so.
SM -- Again you're supposing that a woman would see her doctor after she had an illegal abortion (we're still acting on the fanatasy that abortion is illegal here). Now why, I ask you, if I had just taken pills that caused me to miscarry illegally, would I see my doctor for the symptoms of that miscarriage? The vast majority of women would be savvy enough to know what to expect before they took the pills and plan accordingly. Only in the rare cases where something went medically wrong would these women need to seek medical attention. Therefore, your method for catching women who abort seems woefully inefficient. I'm not sure whether your main goal is to end abortions or to simply make them illegal. Those are two vastly different aims. Even when abortions were illegal, they were performed on a very regular basis by both doctors and laypersons. A group of women activists in Chicago during the late sixties formed a group called Jane in which members (there were about 100) trained to perform abortions on women. These weren't doctors, they were students, housewives, career women, etc... who felt they were helping their fellow women. I would argue that today (due in large part to RU486) it would be far easier to perform underground abortions. In many instances it would be as simple as smuggling drugs, and we all know how good Americans can be at that when they put their minds to it. If your goal is, rather, to end abortions then it requires a far more radical course of action. We live in a culture that glorifies violence and death. There is very little sanctity to life (and to the act of creating life for that matter). All the teen movies with non-stop sex never address what would happen if the girl accidently got pregnant. All the action movies that show numerous artful slow-motion deaths never address the true pain and suffering of those that die and those that they leave behind. And all the men's magazines don't portray women as "the single greatest creation of God" but rather an object to stimulate desire. How can we as a culture be asked to respect the life that is inherent in a two-week-old mass of cells and tissues when we can't even respect the lives of our fellow fully-realized human beings all around us? I don't believe this is an easy issue with easy answers. If we're not willing to examine how we, as a culture got here in first place, we're never going to be able to find our way out.
I do not have any delusions about anyone having the ability to reduce the number of abortions to zero. While I think that would be ideal, I suppose my "main goal", that is what I think can be reasonably acheived, is to make abortions illegal, preferably with a punishment approaching that of murder. Of course there will still be many abortions, but hopefully they will be fewer, and anyone caught contributing to them in any way would be punished accordingly. As an aside, I do not think it is very consistent that many pro-life people support the death penalty. I do not think anyone should be killed, except in the defense of ourselves or others. I do not agree with death as a punishment for past wrong doings and it does not work as a deterrent. I guess some people feel the guilt or innocence of a life must be taken into account, but I don't think we have the right to judge who deserves to live and die.
My opinions on this issue are well documented in another very long thread on the topic, so I won't repeat them here. StupidMoniker, I think you know we're on different sides of the abortion debate, but you get serious credit from me for your consistent "pro-life" stance.
Sorry but I've been somehow blocked from posting for the last 24 hours. Weird. (See the Feedback Forum thread I started. Anyone know what's up?) I am disappointed that you dodge a couple of straight-forward questions I've asked. However, I am a fan of irony so I'll just have to laugh. You'd rather call me "rigid" and duck out. We are both "staunchly" commited to our positions.... but you won't find me ducking questions. Sorry but that's how I see it. I don't feel I should apologize for standing up in defense of innocent lives.
Men's magazines depict women as objects of desire so we can't be reasonably expected to value life? That's absurd.
I don't think those two statements were necessarily strictly cause-and-effect related, HS. StupidMoniker: when abortions were illegal (basically for the brief century-and-a-bit window from the Victorian period until Roe V. Wade in 1973), women had them anyway, in huge numbers. A lot of the women *and* the unborn foetuses you're so concerned with died, horribly. Whether or not it's morally 'right' in your eyes, you can't stop women doing this, no matter how hard you try. There's just no way. And what are you going to do about the morning-after pill??
I follow your point. I'm not siding with StupidMoniker, but in an ideal case, you could eliminate *most* abortions with proper education, adequate access to real birth control (I've been part of proving "timing" wrong in my own life, thank you), and proper support and respect of women across the board. In the spirit of some of the preceding discussion, right? But if you're saying stopping abortion with legislation and an authoritarian fist won't work, I completely agree. It'd sort of be like trying to stomp out anti-American sentiment in the world with with ... whoops.
Is it impossible to do all of the things suggested by B-Bob, *AND* make abortion illegal? I don't know the numbers, but I doubt abortions went down significantly the year they were legalized. Maybe with death, prison, or serious illness as a deterrent, one woman might decide to just have her baby. I don't see how allowing abortion will mean less abortions than disallowing them. I think abortion can be attacked from multiple fronts, and maybe one day in the far distant future, people will just stop killing their own children.
Hayes -- I'm certain you realize that I was pointing to men's magazines (along with many other things you didn't quote) as a symptom of a society that doesn't place a high value on the sanctity of life. As dimsie pointed out, I didn't state a direct cause-and-effect relationship (ie...Penthouse = abortions). But your way does sound a lot more sensational.
My point is that saying men's magazines and movies prevent us from valuing life is silly. So far stretched in logic as to be incomprehensible. Which side of this debate glorifies death? Sounds to me like your stance pretty much puts the 'rights' of women above the 'sanctity of life.' Talk about the pot and the kettle. Some do, some don't. Not all movies have to be the same for you to 'value' life. There are 'dramas' and 'documentaries' among others that address serious questions. There are comedies and 'action' movies that are farcical reflections of life. Again, how does this, or your compilation of examples stop us from valuing life? That's crazy. You want to be pro-choice, no problem. We cannot FORCE women to carry babies to term. But don't try and justify it as some 'we are zombies to the modern culture and cannot value life' trip. This is just a cop out. Your value hierarchy puts a woman's 'right to choose' above life. You value YOUR lifeSTYLE and other women's lifeSTYLE over LIFE. Simple as that.
Birthdays are much better, Who would want to reminded every year that your parents had to have sex to make you. ewwwww On my personal opinion, I think killing a human, born or not is murder and should never have been ruled on by the supreme court. I'm not going to argue with anyone here, thats just my opinion.
Simple? I don't think anything about this debate is simple. It's a complex issue from all sides. I was unaware of trying to justify anything but, rather, was explaining (from my own perspective) why I think outlawing abortion is a difficult prospect in this country at this time. As far as the men's magazines idea: I chose that example as a counterpoint to SM's quote about women being the "single greatest creation of God." I wanted to highlight a way we, as a society, don't follow that line of thinking (it wasn't a judgement on SM, by the way). I think the majority of people would admit that their respect for women doesn't increase after reading Hustler or Penthouse. Are men's magazines the reason we still don't have equal pay for women, low-cost birth control options, a universal health-care plan and comprehensive sex-ed? Certainly, no. They're just a tiny little piece of the puzzle that I wanted to point out. If you feel differently, that's fine too.
