Holy hell there are some misinformed opinions on this topic. An abortion is a life altering action. One so heavy, deep, and consequential that is carries with it a mind blowingly painful burden that is in itself a punishment greater than any court could probably dish out if abortions are made illegal. This is the nexus of Susan B. Anthony's argument (the god mother of the "pro life" movement.. whom, ironically, was "pro choice" if you look at the details of her stance on the issue... and yeah, sorry Batman for using those dumb propagandist terms.. just makes it easier for me to type this out) I really wish you were alive before Roe. V. Wade (not that I was, but I've at least tried to find out what it was like back then)... abortion was legalized not because of a liberal movement to give people more rights over their bodies.. it was legalized to prevent a public health crisis... both in the black market of abortion practice, and also in my theory of overpopulation. 50 years ago abortion was practiced regularly, and quite dangerously. This is a dangerously ignorant statement that completely ignores the historical context of abortion. Question your ethics tenfold? Are you serious? You really want to play the "draw devil horns" on people game? Batman very eloquently rebuffed this already, but I hope to God you are not assuming that anyone is actually "for" people having abortions in this debate. That is a faulty assumption that sends this debate straight to the gutter at breakneck speed. This is a clever way of trying to twist the debate by defining what life is by your own terms. Whenever I discuss abortion with someone, I generally do not even bring this stuff up. Why? Because it has zero place in the discussion. Trying to force your opinion of when life begins down people's throat is a losing battle, no one is buying it. Instead, I try to discuss the merits and drawbacks of the public policy of legalized abortion and state sponsored birth control. We must look at this more pragmatically, and less emotionally. (and in case you were wondering, the "where does life begin" discussion is entirely emotional) Another emotional argument. What "does" give someone the right to decide if a child should be born or not? There's no way that discussing this issue in the context of "a child's rights" is going to get us anywhere. Framing the discussion how you want it by placing in subtle ambiguous terms of an emotional nature is a clever tactic used by both sides. That's really awesome for both you, and your daughter especially. Anecdotal evidence is nice, and I appreciate you opening up to the BBS like that with personal stuff, but it doesn't have much of a place in the discussion empirically. This story can be told a thousand different ways, and I guarantee you that not all of them have the happy ending yours does. Religion seems to be a common thread among the "pro life" crowd. Which is another major issue. When I talked about the "beginning of life" being an emotional discussion, it harks back to religion. That is at the heart of this debate, essentially. It is state secularity vs. religion all over again. Yes, religion has defined and shaped many tenants of our current laws, but we are slowly and surely moving away from this. Making a law that is solely rooted in a religious or 'emotional' belief (i.e. when life begins) is a direct march back towards theocracy. And as much as I respect the beliefs of others, for one, won't stand to see that happen. "You and me baby we're nothin' but mammals, so lets do it like they do on the Discovery Channel..." Sorry, had to indulge there Here comes the emotional ploys again. Once again using a theory of religion (i.e. we're "higher" beings, etc) to support an argument grounded solidly in emotionally driven religious doctrine. This whole "man v. ape" argument is very tired, and I for one, refuse to engage in it. One word of caution though, you live by the sword of righteousness, you die from it, too. (in other words, you're frolicking through a mindfield of hypotheticals and conjecture.. tread lightly) Batman pretty much summed up how I feel on this issue. If you're for criminalizing abortion (unleashing a hellacious public safety epidemic, not to mention further widening the class divide), and against birth control and proper sex-ed, then you are, indeed, a flaming hypocrite and a danger to our society as a whole, and for the good of our society, hope you never see your wishes fulfilled.
While your points are probably great and obviously well thought out because of their length, can't you move this quote and your responses to the abortion thread so that this thread can continue on topic please?
Is it possible that anyone that is going to respond to the above can move those quotes and responses to the abortion thread?
Are you new to the D&D? Side arguments happen all the time, its a way of life in here, bro. Just get used to it and go with the flow..
Im not as new as you might think, regardless of when it says I signed up or how many posts I have made. What I do know is that those who hijack threads are encourage to move them to the appropiate thread or start a new one on the subject as it has been suggested many times already in this thread. So be polite and try to respect the board since you have been here long enough to understand these things. Side discussions always occur, but when a completely different topic goes on for pages, it is usually important enough to start it's own thread and move so that those who want to discuss the title issue can do so without the pages of off topic chatter, important or not.
If you are pulling for me, you could help by taking your entire well reasoned and thought out post and post it in the Abortion thread and asking those whom you responded to, to go there and respond there in order to continue the discussion. I probably will get involved myself.
In my own mind, I can imagine Obama and Biden as president and V.P. doing the work of leading this country. I can't bring myself to imagine McCain and Palin in the White House. The more I think about it, the more bizarre the choice of Palin seems. rocketanalyist, I agree with what you are trying to do with the thread and wanting it to devolve back into a discussion of Palin herself. But what's happened may be illustrative Palin's effect on the race. Abortion might become a dominant issue of this election, which would be a huge advantage to the Dems. It may take a new thread on Palin instead of abortion.
The abortion discussion has been visited numerous times on this board. It is not worth the effort to go through it again. Contribute money to Clutch, get the search function and you can see for yourself.
I agree with you and see your point. You are probaby right, the thread would have been better titled using Palin and her abortion views. I also think that this issue is so strong, that they have almost given the election to the Dems, which I am thankful of this year after eight years of cowboy Bush. Again, like you, I am terrified of McCain and Palin in the White House. How anyone can think McCain puts country first is beyond my imagination. He has definitely without doubt put his winning the election above the interests of the country in case his cancer flares up again. Anyone that disagrees with that is lying to themselves more than to me.
The Palin pick energizes the conservative base that has been very lukewarm with the McCain nomination. This election is going to be very close.
I would agree that the pick will energize the conservative base as it seems, but I think it will alienate many independants and other and therefore in the end the election will not be close. An electoral blowout is coming!
After thinking about it,... IMO McCain blew the VP pick. The right VP would have put McCain over the top. McCain is a 72 year old cancer survivor...I, and I'm sure many voters, don't feel comfortable putting an inexperienced VP a heartbeat from the presidency. Pawlenty sounded like a moron on Meet the Press. He was trying to defend Palin's inexperience. He said she has more experience than Obama. What is he smoking? Obama has experience dealing with national issues as a senator. Furthermore, Biden is the chairman of the Foreign Relations commitee. Palin's resume is mayor of a city with 9,000 people and governor for 2 years. Great.
there are some indications that some clinton supporters who are still mad are very happy with the palin pick....also independent white female voters are being affected too. I think Palin will help McCain get more female voters. The question is what will happen with the experience issue? I think it will merely prevent McCain from attacking OBama's experience. Also, the investigation may hurt Palin, but we'll have to see.
Any so-called Clinton supporters that are still mad after the convention and hearing their so-called leader speak, are not really Clinton supporters, but vagina supporters. But they are entitled to support what they like. Maybe they are some of the republican women that Rush inspired to switch over and vote for Hillary to try to slow the Obama momentum down. So they probably never intended to vote Democratic in the general election anyway. We all know that they exist. So polling them means nothing. Everyone knows that Clinton was not as close as the primary election suggested. It was more republican interference with right winged radio hosts perpertrating the fraud with their followers.
I seriously doubt this is true. And I think you underestimate the power of emotion. A lot of women wanted Hillary to be on the ticket - and she was passed over. They may just vote for McCain. While it's not a "logical" choice, people's choices are rarely logical.
The initial polling suggests this is untrue. 1: Women reacted much more negatively than did men: http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/08/women-more-skeptical-of-palin-than-men.html 2. Moderates reacted much more negatively than positively: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/undecideds-dont.html We'll see how that changes over time, but she didn't get the immediate, emotional reaction from the Hillary supporters.
