No point in using rationality, really. A choice not to believe in some very particular something does not mean that you are somehow determined to believe in nothing. The fact that I don't believe in the same something you do doesn't mean I've actively chosen a belief in nothing.
Of course not, but I'm the uneducated one. Please explain what part of my obvious ignorant comment is flawed?
Some little ones are forced to be aborted. Why stop talking about her; she is at the center of the issue. You want to forget her and/or sacrifice her for the sake of someone's right to choose; I want to include her for her right to life. In my "perfect little world," people take care of the lives they create or they generously give them up for adoption to those who will. Nobody has to die and leaving that choice by Law is a stain on our national character. Some folks go berserk about the Death Penalty for a convicted mass murderer but don't give a thought to saving the life of an unborn, innocent child. Where is the sense in that?
No one is being forced to have an abortion, but we sanction it legally and the child is victimized for life by our allowance of that. Mother's health/mother's choice is a fair exception to that and that truly is between her, her God, her doctor, and her husband if she has one.
WTF, do you understand the meaning of "believe". So if you don't believe in anything, you believe in what? Not believing? So I believe in "not believing"...../head explodes To you, the absence of something is the presence of nothing. Does that really make sense?
Think about it this way.... I think that life begins at conception. GRowdy thinks that life begins when the child can live independently of the mother's biological support. It's not that GRowdy lacks a belief. It is that he holds one which allows him to justify the termination of the pregnancy without feeling he is sacrificing a human life. He has no lack of belief. He has one that suits his purpose. But to my way of thinking it violates a human life. Who is right? Who's to say? Erring on the side of caution in matters of life and death seems the obvious choice. BTW, I've held firm to this stance on abortion since before I had children and before I had religious conviction. And my religious conviction is pretty laid back and amorphous.
It means you "believe" there is nothing else out there. I apologize if this concept is making your head hurt.
The national character? The national "character", insofar as there can be one, is following the Constitution, and the interpretation of such by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has ruled time and time again that abortion is not in the purview of governmental legistation. I quote from Casey v. Planned Parenthood--- "Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt. Yet 19 years after our holding that the Constitution protects a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy in its early stages, Roe v. Wade (1973), that definition of liberty is still questioned. Joining the respondents as amicus curiae, the United States, as it has done in five other cases in the last decade, again asks us to overrule Roe." The plurality opinion stated that it was upholding what it called the "essential holding" of Roe. The plurality asserted that the right to abortion is grounded in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and the plurality reiterated what the Court had said in Eisenstadt v. Baird: "f the right of privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child." "Because neither the factual underpinnings of Roe's central holding nor our understanding of it has changed (and because no other indication of weakened precedent has been shown), the Court could not pretend to be reexamining the prior law with any justification beyond a present doctrinal disposition to come out differently from the Court of 1973.”
I think I know what you're getting at. I ask: what does it mean when we continue to behave as though all were as it should be, calling ourselves Christians according to the New Testament, when the ideals of the New Testament have gone out of life? The tremendous disproportion which this state of affairs represents has, moreover, been perceived by many. They like to give it this turn: the human race has outgrown Christianity. —Søren Kierkegaard As an atheist, Kierkegaard is my favorite Christian. He made me accept the fact that faith is necessary in human life, while calling out the "salad bar" theists who choose their favorite parts of a religion and leave the rest. As humans, we must have faith in something to avoid the paradox that is the absurd. If life has no meaning, and we don't have the answers to every question, then a blind leap in logic is the only way to define the purpose we as humans naturally seek. If you are a theist, that is fine. If you are a Christian, I have no problem with that. If you claim to be Christian, yet do nothing to follow the teachings of Christianity, you are only cheating yourself. A person who dedicates themselves to the teachings they have faith in, they will be happier than most of us trying to define purpose for ourselves.
Some people equate abortion with popping a zit Some people think it's murder Democracy determined the compromise We didn't have a civil war That is our national character orrrr not GOP senator files abortion amendment to cybersecurity bill http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatc...iles-abortion-amendment-to-cybersecurity-bill Republican likens contraceptive mandate to Pearl Harbor, 9/11 http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/01/13070876-republican-likens-contraceptive-mandate-to-pearl-harbor-911?lite&__utma=14933801.830952705.1343859522.1343859522.1343859522.1&__utmb=14933801.3.10.1343859522&__utmc=14933801&__utmx=-&__utmz=14933801.1343859522.1.1.utmcsr=(direct)|utmccn=(direct)|utmcmd=(none)&__utmv=14933801.|8=Earned%20By=msnbc%7Ccover=1^12=Landing%20Content=Mixed=1^13=Landing%20Hostname=www.nbcnews.com=1^30=Visit%20Type%20to%20Content=Earned%20to%20Mixed=1&__utmk=85114521
What about the law? Laws are changed. Bad laws have been on the books. Needed laws have gone abegging. Abortion is an issue that, I think, pretty equally divides this country. Our toleration or our condoning of it can change.
giddy, from the standpoint of the law, why do you oppose abortion? Where is the line to which government can impose itself on someone's body and the choices they make with it?
No. It means you refrain from believing in anything. Atheism is the ABSENCE of belief not the belief of absence. To assert that something exists one must prove that it exists. The burden is on the religious types to prove that God exists, not on Atheists to disprove it.
The national American character, if there is such a thing, is one of rule of law and of respecting that even with differing views, Americans can come together towards one interpretation of the Constitution. Abortion has been ruled legal, and it has been upheld several times by the Supreme Court. It is a testament to the character and the strength of the American spirit that this decision, save for the occasional crazies, has been respected. It is in no way an indictment of America that a court of its' best and brightest was able to craft a consistent and logical jurisprudence on the issue that has, in most aspects, been respected. Don't count on it changing either, now that the Supreme Court is moving towards including more women, rapidly. Justice O'Connor broke with her conservative ideology to defend Roe v. Wade, and Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Kagan don't even have to cross ideological lines to do so. Conservatives had their best chance with the slew of Bush-Reagen appointees in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. With Kennedy swinging more and more liberal (especially on the social front), Scalia getting up there in age, Roberts showing his moderate side to the world, and Breyer...just being around...Roe v. Wade will never be overturned.
1. Because the law enables someone to determine life or death for an innocent child. 2. Obviously it is a complex issue but the obvious would seem to be some iteration of protecting an innocent life. Even your question only accounts for an imposition on the woman's right to choose. What about the life of the innocent child that hangs in the balance? That is not even part of your formulation of the question. I have no interest in interfering with other people's lives. They can tattoo the inside of their nose and marry their cousin for all I care. But when it imposes a death sentence on a burgeoning life, I have a problem. Why don't you?
