You are absolutely right, I have been making sweeping generalizations. Please do not take my comments about picketers and bombers to heart if you are not one. Unfortunately, ALL anti-abortionists ultimately want to curtail the rights that women have in regard to their bodies. I will continue to maintain that abortion is a private matter that should be left between the woman and God. Government has absolutely no business BANNING abortion. Reasonable restrictions (late term abortions, parental notification, etc.) should be in place as long as they do not unduly burden the woman or take her choice away.
I wouldn't call that website "advertising" exactly. I have my own website for photos, family discussion, and general information, but I do not think I am "advertising" myself. I would object to abortion clinics advertising on TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines, but the website you mentioned is more of an information clearinghouse.
The other side of this is that abortions are so readily available now that the Daddy rarely knows about the pregnancy-- and is not notified about the abortion either.
Did you bother reading the article? Here is how it starts in case you didn't: "Like any smart businesswoman, Robin Rothrock is always looking for ways to raise her organization’s profile. Recently, she put up a Web site, complete with her price list, a toll-free phone number and a map with directions to her place of business. Eventually, she’d like clients to be able to schedule appointments online. The difference is that Rothrock’s business is abortions. In Shreveport, La., home of her Hope Medical Group for Women, she can't depend on conventional advertising or word-of-mouth. Newspapers and television and radio stations aren’t eager to run her ads. And Louisiana bans anyone who works for the state or for a social service agency receiving public funds from mentioning the word abortion...." As the article mentions, since she is unable to adequately get conventional advertising, she relies on the internet. Setting up a web site to promote a business is, indeed, advertising. Setting up a website to promote yourself, is not advertising. Here is her website as noted in the article: http://www.hopemedical.com/ This certainly advertises and promotes her business.
I'm not a bomber or a picketer. I have not condemned anyone who has had an abortion. I don't want to. But that doesn't mean that I don't find abortion reprehensible. I don't want to curtail any woman's rights to her body. I do want to curtail anyone's rights to destroy the body of another.
Just like ALL pro-abortionists ultimately want to curtail the rights that babies have in regard to their bodies. From the last paragraph, are you now willing to say that late term abortions should be illegal?
Again, this is a sweeping generalization. A number (I suspect the majority) of pro-choice folks will say "I am pro-choice but anti-abortion"(or something to that effect). Ask most politicians. Ask people on this board. Most will say how awful abortion is and they are not for them, BUT they will say it is the woman's choice. Therefore, they establish that they are "anti-abortion".
They are notified in Texas unless the girl can prove to a judge that she will undergo significant trauma at the hands of the parents if they are notified.
Information about options available to women should be posted and available. Again, it is not TV, print, or radio, which means that the information is there only for people who seek it out. There are cults and crazies out there that have websites that try to promote themselves, but it is not advertising (in my mind) unless it ends up in front of people without any effort on their part.
I don't think highly of abortion as an option in most cases. I think we should start some REAL sex education in this country to reduce the number of people (particularly young people) who have unwanted pregnancies. Unfortunately, many of the same people who are anti-abortion also campaign to keep our kids ignorant by reducing or eliminating sex education in the schools. I think we should eliminate abortion by educating people about sex and providing effective contraception for people who want it. If you want to eliminate abortion, you have to start at the root of the problem, not by taking away a woman's rights. While the fetus is physiologically dependant on the mother, it IS part of her body.
Babies (infants that are not dependant on a mother's biological processes) do have rights that I do not want to curtail. Fetuses are part of the woman's body. Late term abortions ARE illegal.
That describes me. I (if I were a pregnant woman) would not get an abortion, but I realize that I have absolutely NO right to make that decision for someone else. That decision is between the woman and God.
andy -- babies are physiologically dependent on other for their survival for YEARS after their birth. particularly so in the months after their birth. i don't think that's a good distinction. in the sense you mean it...babies are physiologically dependent on their mother right up until the moment the draw their first breath...does that mean that any time up to that point is ok for abortion? ultimately, i don't think we're able to draw a clear line...and thus, we're playing loose and fast with human life when we say, "on this day it's ok to terminate the pregnancy...but a week later it's wrong!" that's too arbitrary. it has separate DNA structure from the moment it's conceived. forcing my beliefs...well...we've all forced our beliefs on murder, haven't we? haven't we all forced our beliefs on those who would rather just kill their kids than deal with them? those who would rather murder their wife than continue living with them? our laws are a collection of forced beliefs. we have all sorts of laws about reckless homicide...about what should happen to people who play loose and fast with human lilfe. so we're not inventing the wheel here. the whole, "you're forcing your beliefs on me" is quite the red herring item here. bottom line...if the life is separate and apart from the mother's life...then it is distinguishable and the extermination of that life by the act of another should be made criminal.
The father of the baby does not have any right to tell the woman what to do, either. As long as the fetus cannot survive outside the mother, it is a part of her body.
right up until the point of birth, right??? that's where your argument leads...so if the baby is in the process of being born and someone jabs scissors into its head to kill it...that's just peachy keen with you, huh?
He doesn't have the right to tell her what to do or be a part of the decision making process, but he does have the obligation to support the child?
No, the baby is physiologically dependant on SOMEONE for years, not necessarily the mother. It is called adoption. If a baby can be removed from the mother and can survive with the help of OTHER people, then it is a "life" in my mind. Until we can remove a fetus or zygote and bring it to term in a test tube, we do not have the right to FORCE a woman to do anything with her body. DNA does not constitute a "life," only a living, breathing person is a life (in the context we are discussing). It is not arbitrary at all. If the fetus can survive being removed from the mother, then it is too late to abort (these types of abortions are illegal already except for medical reasons). In all the cases you mentioned, there is definite and proven harm being cased by one party on another party. There is not a concensus on when "life" begins (actually there is, but you don't agree with the concensus) so there is no way to compare your examples to abortion. Abortion is a medical procedure that, for most women, is not morally wrong. Just because a vocal minority (anti-abortionists) believe that it is amoral does not necessitate a return to the dark ages. Absolutely, as soon as the life is separate and apart from the mother, its extermination IS ALREADY illegal. Until that fetus can survive outside the mother, it is still a part of her body and she has every right to consult God and reach a decision as to her course of action.
