We’re keeping this one up a little longer.
This is a different view of the whole raging controversy over, effectively, which entity has the right to control a woman’s body: the federal government or states.
The Right Without Which No Other Right Exists
The fetus only exists because of the woman’s body — not yours, not that of some possibly corrupt and stupid politician in Washington, and not the body of some possibly ignorant and venal politician in a state legislature. As I have watched this debate develop, and as I have considered with astonishment the increasingly byzantine efforts to ” draw lines” about the point of viability, the time at which a full set of rights attaches to the fetus, and all the rest, I have become increasingly convinced that the right of the woman to control her own body when she is pregnant must be absolute up to the point of birth. All the attempts to craft legislation circumscribing that right prior to birth quickly become enmeshed in what are finally subjective claims that can be disputed into eternity, and impossible of proof in one direction or another.
Let the battle begin!
Define “birth” and I’m with you.
Before the new disputes, at one time, pretty much everyone agreed it was upon being baptised, and more recently, upon first breath.
Then in whatever cases, I guess “partial-birth abortion” still needs to be argued thru.
For these definitional disputes alone–I say the mother should be allowed to kill the product of her conception until the kid leaves home.
Uncle Dave… Nice MILF. 😉
For those of you that haven’t lived with a late term pregnant woman, I can assure you the photograph is total fantasy. No doubt the post count will be long in this thread.
I don’t understand the difficulty that so many people have understanding this. There is no science to say exactly what point a life becomes human. So, we have a human and a question. Clearly the human has rights.
Further, all arguments to outlaw any form of abortion always start with religion. So, in order to be anti-choice, one must first admit that they are willing to legislate from religion, thus completely trashing any hopes at separation of church and state.
In short, in order to be anti-choice, one must actively want to live in a theocracy.
Might I suggest Iran?
Further, the same Repugnican platform that is anti-choice, is also pro-death-penalty. So, what’s the deal? Should abortion be legal only when state mandated anytime after the 75th trimester?
Err … I’m an atheist and I think abortion is terrible. Why does someone have to believe in fairy tales to think sucking a fetus’s brains out is wrong?
I’ve only read 2 of your posts and they were both exceptionally peabrained in the thinking department so far.
#6, H,
I’ve only read 2 of your posts and they were both exceptionally peabrained in the thinking department so far.
Pot, meet kettle.
If common sense and logic, rather than religion were applied to birth control, there would be far few births to abort. We have the Lemming principle at full speed ahead right now, as life on the planet deteriorates because of it.
>>I’m an atheist and I think abortion is terrible.
I think everyone (with a few psycho excpetions) agrees that abortion is not an ideal solution. The question here is should it be CRIMINALIZED?
It would be great if the right-wing holy rollers would support strategies (decent sex education, use of birth control, condoms, etc.) that would cut down on the need for abortion, but they don’t. It would be great if people were smart enough to realize that if they fuck, one of them has a good chance of getting pregnant, but they’re not.
So we’re back to deciding whether or not to respect the “fundamental principles of individual liberty” (pro-choice), or to try and legislate morality. (anti-choice). It’s never (in the absence of some left-wing policy like sex-ed or birth control) going to be eradicate; the best the fat old men who want to criminalize it can hope for is to drive it into the back alleys, where incompetent butchers with coat hangers will perform the abortions.
Of course, another alternative, seemingly quite popular among the “pro-life” contingent, is to hire snipers and shoot all the abortion doctors. Or fire-bomb their clinics. You just gotta love those “pro-life” folks. They’re so nutty.
>>Nice MILF
I don’t think you’re going to get much argument on that one, Jägermeister
“I’ve only read 2 of your posts and they were both exceptionally peabrained in the thinking department so far.”
Since you’re a beginner, we’ll try to be tolerant.
#9 – MM,
Very well said. Certainly, we need to provide decent sex-ed to reduce the number of abortions performed. We also need to educate people so that when an abortion is necessary, they come in sooner. However, even with our best efforts, even in the ideal situation, it will never be eradicated. And, I strongly believe that the choice of whether to abort must reside with the woman and anyone she chooses to help her through the difficult decision. There is no one right answer for everyone. We should definitely not legislated it away.
#6 – Hmeyers,
Congratulations, you are the first atheist anti-choicer I’ve ever come across. What are your reasons? Do you make exceptions for the health of the mother? What do you think about cases of rape and incest? What do you think about RU-486? Do you object to abortion when the fetus has fewer brain cells than a mosquito? What about when it has fewer than a pig? Are you opposed to eating meat? Do you support the death penalty? What about a right to die with dignity, i.e. doctor assisted suicide?
I am serious about all of these questions. I’d like to gauge the way you feel about specific cases and about other issues of life. Sorry to make you a case study of one. But, I really never have met an atheist anti-choicer before.
#5 Further, the same Repugnican platform that is anti-choice, is also pro-death-penalty. So, what’s the deal? Should abortion be legal only when state mandated anytime after the 75th trimester?
Not quite the same thing. The fetus is guilty of existing only. The death penalty candidate has generally earned his fate.
Perry
Mr. Scott, I would add to your list of questions to HMeyers “What do you [HMeyers] think about birth control pills?”.
Since oral contraceptives often work, not by preventing ovulation, but by PREVENTING IMPLANTATION OF THE FERTILIZED OVUM (ie, “post-life, pre-born”), taking birth control pills is (in the view of the anti-choice folks) tantamount to abortion.
Many people do not know this little factoid, and when it’s pointed out to the ortho-novum-popping anti-choicers, there’s a lot of sputtering, muttering, reddening of faces, and changing of subjects.
“Abortions, fuck no! Jail time for the trailer trash who get or provide them. But admitting that taking birth control pills is often the same thing, that interferes with my life style!”.
One thing the anti-choicers aren’t lacking in is hypocrisy.
>>The death penalty candidate has generally earned his fate
Well, depending on what you think constitutes “earning” death, sometimes yes, sometimes no.
Plenty of death row candidates have been exonerated by DNA evidence. And it’s not for nothing that prosecutors have fought tooth and nail into ex post facto introduction of DNA evidence, even though it may free an innocent person. Not good for their conviction rates, I guess. Better to let an innocent man die than to jeopordize the DA’s chances for re-election.
Vive la vie!
#15. And I might add here that a defendant ‘earns his fate’ by being a black man who kills a white victim. When the roles are reversed, the white defendant most often ‘earns his fate’ of imprisonment.
If the death penalty proves anything, it is that its protagonists value the lives of black people – whether they be murderers or victims – a whole lot less than that of white folks.
#13, #15, & #16,
And I believe there was also a state where no one that could afford their own attorney had ever been put to death. However, the point in #15 about innocents on death row makes the case better than any other possible statement.
Just one more thing to add to that, death penalty sure doesn’t make the statement that ALL life is sacred.
Biblically, life begins with the taking of the first breath.
That does not, however, make abortion a substitute for contraception.
#12
MS, perhaps my comments were a little reactionary. I do not believe in labels like “pro-choice” or “pro-life” nor do I subscribe to exactly either of those positions.
Yes, I believe in birth control RU486 and of course, I believe in abortion in the case of rape or incest or health reasons. I’m not sure I’m in favor of abortion being illegal, but I find abortion very wrong and would like to see less of it.
Why is it some of you think anyone who thinks abortion is wrong has extreme views? Now just because I think abortion is wrong doesn’t mean I think it should be outlawed (although late term abortion should be, where they suck the head out).
Stereotypes and labels are the antithesis to actual free thinking because they cause someone to lump someone into a category rather than see that person as an individual.
>>Why is it some of you think anyone who thinks abortion is
>>wrong has extreme views?
We don’t. We may think anyone who want to make it A CRIME may have extreme views, but that’s sort of self-evident, isn’t it?
As I said, just about everyone (with a few psycho exceptions) thinks that there are any number of preferable alternatives to abortion. Unfortunately, most of the anti-choice crowd has as much revulsion for the alternatives as they do for abortion itself.
“Don’t fuck until you get married, and then only fuck when you want to have kids”. Great program, huh? I can see a stampede of fertile couples charging towards a life where you get to have sex two times between the cradle and the grave. Of course, they could always practice oral sex, or anal sex, or masturbation. Except those are abominations as well.
Tough crowd, those anti-choicers.
#20
Well, something I object to is that just because I believe abortion is wrong does not make me anti-choice.
“Thinking abortion is wrong” is an opinion.
“Thinking abortion should be illegal” is a conclusion.
I can hold the opinion without agreeing with that particular conclusion. I think a lot of people think abortion is wrong, but also think it should be legal or at least mostly legal.
Just because I think abortion is wrong doesn’t mean I don’t think many of the pro-life people are nutballs. I think piracy is wrong, but think the stuff RIAA does is incredibly scumbag-like.
Well then, Hmeyers, we agree. I think abortion is “wrong” too. I don’t think it’s worse than forcing women into back alleys to be poked and prodded with a coat hanger, I don’t think it’s worse than a woman giving birth and then tossing the infant into a Dumpster(R) to freeze to death, I don’t think it’s worse than forcing a woman to give birth to an unwanted child that will endure a life of abuse, poverty, and squalor, until he or she gets hooked on crystal meth or crack and repeats the cycle.
However, I DO think that it’s worse than providing people of child-bearing age with decent sex education, access to birth control, and all of the other things that reduce the number of abortions that need to happen.
Too bad the “religious”-right fruitcakes don’t agree. And if you’re not one of them, que Dios te bendiga.
FYI, for those who commented on the photo, you do know who that is, don’t you? The hair color and angle kind of throws you, but it is none other than mother of the year for two years running, Britney Spears!
#16 – doug
I thought for a moment about responding courteously and thoughtfully to your post there, but after reading it again, I feel a more straightforward approach would be more auspicious, to wit:
You sir, are a fucking moran.
You are mindlessly parroting lies fed to you by the Marxist-run PC Self-Appointed Race Police.
You have been brainwashed.
Blacks – and Hispanic whites – are on Death Row in numbers wildly out of proportion to their % of the general population, because they commit a disproportionate amount of the violent crime in America. I don’t give a flying fuck whether you like it or don’t. Sticking your microcephalic cranium in the fucking sand and pretending it isn’t so doesn’t do one godamned thing to help find a solution to a massive problem that is destroying American society for peaceful, law-abiding people of all races, genders, ethnicities, faiths, and anything else.
Here’s a flash bulletin for you, sucka. White defendants are disproportionately sentenced to death. Surprise, surprise!
FACT: Due to the efforts of brainwashed clowns like yourself, if blacks who commit DP-eligible offenses were proportionately sentenced to death there would be MORE of them on Death Row, not fewer.
And let me help you out here by short-circuiting any half-assed attempt at muddying the waters with more Al Sharpton-inspired horseshit; The FBI, who amasses the crime stats, just like the judges, jury members, police officers and other parties involved are white, black, Asian, Native American, straight, gay, Lesbian, male, female. Diverse, multicultural police arrest these people. Diverse, multicultural juries, at the behest of a diverse, multicultural group of D.A.s convict them at trials conducted by a diverse, mulitcultural selection of judges.
So let’s not start in with this line of crap about the “white racist justice system.” Black jury members are HARSHER on black defendants than whites are. Not surprising, since black people are predominantly their victims.
Violent crime’ll only continue to get worse, as long as clueless, brainwashed assholes like yourself are permitted to vote.
So, in closing, let me wish you the best in your future endeavors as a shill for race-baiting, lying scumbag demagogues. Now go fuck yourself sideways, with my sincere blessing.
HArd concept for some to wrap their brains around – being pro-choice, yet anti-abortion. Too deep, I suspect.
It comes, I believe from having a simplistic mindset, which is a polite way of saying ‘being stupid.’
The “logic” is like, ‘abortion is bad, so if we make it illegal, people won’t have abortions.’ The sort of mind that “reasons” in that fashion is simply not capable of grasping the idea of ‘abortion is bad, so we should try to eliminate the causes and the need for it, but forbidding it is ineffective and destructive of the principles of a free society.’ Too goddamn deep, is what it is.
From the Department of Preaching to the Choir is the bumper sticker sentiment, which every anti-abortion should be confronted with: ‘Don’t like abortion? DON’T HAVE ONE.’
And a note to my fellow pro-choicers; please try to refrain from using the deceptive, false label invented by anti-abortionists, “pro-life” – it plays right into their hands. It was slyly, dishonestly coined to give the false implication that their opponents, as defined by implication, are “anti-life,” which we know to be a total falsehood. It’s easy to fall into the habit of using the term, but it subtlely hurts our cause and helps theirs. Everyone is “pro-life,” so that does not accurately delineate them. “Anti-abortion” does.
Just a suggestion…
Lauren, please don’t hurt me… but may I humbly suggest that you could have said “you are mistaken, and here’s why…”
Otherwise, great post !!!
>>“Anti-abortion” does.
Por mi parte, prefiero “anti-choice”. I am not “pro-abortion” (the logical polar opposite of “anti-abortion”, but I AM pro-choice.
“If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one”. Could it get any simpler than that?
All who would make abortion completely illegal are misogynists who want to treat women like cattle whose sole purpose is to be a brood mare without the rights of an individual (man).
It is nobody’s business but the woman’s and her doctor’s. If she can find even one professional willing to help her that help should be legal. A living woman’s life has to be equal or greater than the potential life she bears.
Pregnancy is a life threatening medical condition and no woman should be forced to endure it.
Abortion is wrong and anyone who wants one should get one for free.
The fact that many things are wrong doesn’t stop our government from doing them, including killing. The question is of the greater good. Cutting someone with a knife is wrong but who’s arguing that surgery should be outlawed? You might say my example is sophistry, I would say that the phrase, “right to life” and it’s variants are equally fatuous.
I’m not in favour of some woman who’s too stupid, or poor, to use birth control, or morning after birth control, raising kids.
Of course the system can be abused, all systems are abused, that’s not a case for abolishing them.
Abolish abortions and the rich Christian fundamentalists will get them done on the sly, as they do now, while the poor get poorer. How much you wanna bet that one of Bush’s daughters has had one?
If a government is allowed to make decisions on the female’s behalf during a pregnancy condition, then what other conditions or times will the government be able to make on the female’s behalf? May be the government will decide that females can only work certain jobs, marry certain men or live in certain countries. Will males have the same restrictions?
The story here is about the government having control over females. The government, at this time, consisting of mostly males.
This is not about death of children. Because if it was about death of children then you would have to acknowledge that everyone kills children everyday either directly or indirectly. By polluting the air some children develop lung problems with part of them dying. By not giving to charities, children in Africa dye of starvation. By declaring war on a country, children dye of wounds inflicted by weapons. No one has argued that these types of deaths should be made illegal. Why should abortion be the exception?