Limits on Abortion

But some how this isn't...?

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." -C.S. Lewis

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My wife had a child before she was able to properly care for her. What did she do? She did the unselfish, and far more difficult thing to do, which is give her up for adoption.

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Difficult, indeed.

You can put that video on your iPod? I thought having porn on mine was cool, but this takes it to a whole new level. Look out fellow bus riders, there's a new thing to be uncomfortable about!!!

Christ.Think it through. Why would women go to gynecologists ever if they thought that, at the slightest indication that their miscarriage might have been the result of something they did, their doctor would turn them over to the police?Do you remember when I talked about a decline in pre-natal care? Why did you think I suspected that would happen? I was just being cute? And when a miscarriage happens - it's just a bloody mass in the toilet that nobody knows about but the mother - how are the police going to even know about it?You have this fantasy of a miscarriage leaving a crime scene for CSI to pour over, and Crossing Jordan performing an autopsy on a tiny little murder victim - as though you could make a Y-incision on a blastocyst and find the cause of death.No. The future you're talking about is a future where a woman's sexual history, political activities, and other private matters are put under public scrutiny, searching for the slightest hint that she might not have been completely broken up about the idea of a miscarriage. Any hint that she might have had the slightest complicity.That future is a horror, and I'll fight to the last breath to prevent it. It disgusts me - and the worst part is, you refuse to even contemplate the fact that you're promoting it. Your stubborn refusal to think through the consequences is smug, smarmy, and offensive. These are women's lives we're talking about, NJ. That you so easily dismiss that is disgusting.

Which countries are you referring to? Yemen? Afghanistan? Tunisia? Giving birth is not a punishment for promiscuity, especially for those who are married. Its called "responsibility." Its called "being accountable for your actions." A lower homicide rate. What benefit is their in killing your own babies? How about the consequences of abortion? The moral implications? The social implications? This is madness and you are completely imbued and sold out on the pretty picture painted to you by the pro-abortion movement.Lets try a new approach. Instead of saying why the pro-life movement is so terrible, explain to me your rationale about why the pro-abortion gang is so good. Explain to me why you feel that a fetus is no big deal and why you are so certain of it.

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." -C.S. Lewis

Easily.This:isn't a person. This doesn't have a soul, this doesn't have rights, this doesn't have a mind; this isn't an infant, a child, a baby, or an "unborn person." This is a fetus, something that cannot feel, or know, or fear. It's as sensate and aware as a potted fern. And it's destruction, happening as it does a hundred times a day in the normal course of human biology, is no more significant or troubling to me than leaves falling from a tree.But this:this is a person; this does have rights, and one of those rights is the right to a certain degree of self-determination and physical autonomy. The right to privacy! The right not to have her panties sniffed by moralist busybodies more concerned about a couple of cells than the rights of a person.The world of cheap and easy access to abortion is a world where a woman is never forced, against her will, to undergo the stresses and dangers of pregnancy. It's a world where children don't, for the most part, grow up in homes where they're hated. It's a world where birth is celebrated, not feared, because it happens when it's prepared for. It's a world where women who enjoy sex - which is all of them - aren't labeled "sluts" for simply having bodies.It's a world where there's less crime, because children aren't forced on families that don't have the resources to see to their education and upbringing. It's a world where no child lives a tragic, brutal, painful, short life due to a detectable, terminal illness. Search for images of "harlequin babies" and tell me, honestly and from your heart, that an abortion - before there was even a mind there to suffer - wouldn't have been a mercy. It's a world where a child is never born addicted to drugs (like three of my cousins) because a mother who knew she couldn't be a fit parent had access to abortion, regardless of her ability to pay for it.The consequences of abortion is that no child need grow up, fatherless, knowing that every minute of their life was an agonizing reminder of their mother's rape. The consequence of abortion is that no child need grow up in a family that doesn't want them. The consequence of abortion, paradoxically, is that society becomes so comfortable with sexuality, reproduction, and parenthood that abortion becomes hardly ever necessary - because a society motivated by concern for parents, children, and reproductive freedom stresses profligate access to contraception, and contracepting couples have almost no need for abortions.The world of easy access to abortion is a net positive for everyone - including the unborn, because a society where every birth is voluntary is a society where every birth is treasured, and women receive the pre-natal care they need for healthy infants, regardless of their ability to pay.But your world?Your world is a world of these women:because this is how you and your cohorts see women - invisible, blank, except for the baby parts. Your world is a world where women are mandated by law to turn over their menstrual discharge monthly, so that unimplanted zygotes might receive their "proper" burial. (They're human beings, right? Why shouldn't they receive last rites?) Your world is a world where women are informed by doctors that, regardless of their plans or lack of same to have children, they should consider themselves "pre-pregnant", and comport themselves thusly, because their sole worth to society is located about six inches south of the navel.Your world is a world where the tragedy of a miscarriage is compounded by official suspicion and inquiry; where any past history of advocacy for women's rights, women's equality, or women's self-determination becomes incriminating evidence in her trial. Where any hint that she views herself as more than a baby machine is twisted by zealous (and male) prosecutors into proof that she committed "murder of the unborn."And the weirdest part is - your world is a world where there's just as many abortions as there are now! Your world's abortion ban is as effective as trying to cure colds by banning sneezing. Because sex is viewed as something sinful, something best avoided, something serious and never to be enjoyed - and something completely taboo to talk about, contraception is unknown. Thus, necessitating the very abortions you claim to want to prevent!Your world is a world where a scared 14-year-old girl, in a considerable amount of trouble, finds no succor from her friends, or family, or doctors (who she can't trust, since they're under an ethical obligation to report her dismay at finding herself pregnant); who finds no relief or help at any corner but the back-alley abortionist, or ridiculous and dangerous folk remedies, or potentially fatal coathangers, or - heartbreakingly - suicide.Your world is a horror that I will fight to prevent, for the women in my life and for all women. Your world is an abomination that must never be allowed to pass - except that it has. The only consolation is that my world, too, has come to pass.That's how I know what happens, NJ. I look at the societies where abortion is cheap, avaliable, and safe vs. the societies where abortion is a crime, enforced as murder. There's a reason why the former societies are some of the richest, free-est, most civilized nations, with the greatest respect and preservation of human dignity; and why the latter societies - the one you would build for us - are cesspools of oppression, crime, poverty, ignorance, and religious subversion of human freedom and independence.

An abortion can also be seen as taking responsibility and being accountable for your actions.

Bravo Crash!I think I will save a link to this post for use in future discussions.

Hi nemesis,I appreciate that you find that heinous. The question is, how can you reduce the incidence of abortion, in line with your pro-life views, in a way that does not result in bitter acrimony between you and people from the other end of the political spectrum who think that a woman's dignity and right to choose is the most important political principle? The all or nothing approach of making abortion completely illegal just isn't going to work in the US because there are too many people like crashfrog for you to succeed! What you need to do is promote your interests in a more politic manner. What you need to do is reach a consensus with people like crashfrog on political steps that can advance both of your interests. Here are some examples:a) campaign for free creches, childcare and nursery schools for all parents who want to make use of them so that couples do not feel obliged to have an abortion because they do not have time to care for a child.b) campaign for decent living wages for all men and women so that couples and single people do not feel that an abortion is economically necessary.c) campaign for the most open possible adoption system available, including gay and lesbian couples, single people, and young/inexperienced couples, so that the potential pool of adopting parents is as large as possible.d) campaign for free universal healthcare for all men, women and childrene) campaign for women's rights in the workplace, so that women can work flexible hours or take time off if they need to care for their kids, without fearing the loss of their job.f) campaign for paternal rights in the workplace, so that men can work flexible hours or take time off if they need to care for their kids, without fearing for the loss of their job.g) campaign for better sex education for girls and boys so that they are more aware of the contraception possibilites that are availableh) campaign for free universal access to contraception for anybody who wants iti) campaign for better women's rights in a cultural sense, so that girls grow up feeling that they are empowered and able to make decisions about their own health and lives, rather than seeing themselves as merely daughters, wives, sex objects or other property of menj) campaign for improved social mobility, so that the cyclical link between poverty and abortion can be brokenThe good thing about these suggestions is that the pro life movement would get full support from the pro choice movement - you would each have a better chance of success than if you worked alone and indeed in conflict with each other. The pro life movement's aim of reducing abortion as far as possible would be achieved; the pro choice movement's aim of promoting women's rights and dignity would be achieved; and also as a man I could get some time to spend with my kids.Mick

This may be one of the best responses I have ever read...thanks.

Which makes it all the more scary, if NJ and his ilk get their way. Can you imagine? Yikes!

This is so utterly stupid and off target that I guess I have no response. Ok, I guess I'll play along to see if I can't get it through your head how ridiculous you are being.A pregnant women has fallen down the stairs. She says she tripped. The fall resulted in her having a miscarriage. Case closed, NJ. How would you even prove that she did it on purpose? Do you understand?And every friggen miscarriage would HAVE to be treated as a crime...as in ALL of them...as in every single one.Now, if you want to be some sort of "Grade A Asshole", and accuse every women that has a miscarriage of being a criminal, so be it. Me...well, I'm pretty much against that sort of thing. You just don't think these things through, do you?Crashfrog has done a far better job than I in explaining the stupidity of this argument, but here I go nonetheless.If abortions were illegal, women would no go to the gynecologist. Christ, NJ, how hard is that to figure out?Oh, and how, in the stair falling example, would a gynecological exam be of any value? Let's say that some poor women accidentally falls down the stairs and loses her baby. Let's suppose she's very distraught and her story sounds unconvincing to a jury of NJs. You would put her away for life as a murderer. What a guy NJ...what a great guy. What if it went the other way NJ? What if he secretly loved this women and lied to punish her for her refusal to have an affair? Fry the bitch! Why not treat ALL abortions in this manner right now? Drop your desire to make abortions illegal and let's just leave it up to God. I'm perfectly ok with that...as I'm sure most of us would be.

Yeah...cuz those women deserve to be criminals...what with being non-christians and all.

In fairness, I think that diagram's inaccurate. Y'see, I pretty severely doubt that people who view women as blank baby vessels manage to acknowledge the existence of the clitoris.

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"I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut."
-Stephen Colbert

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What I mean is that if there is a high probability of death for both parties, you must opt to save the mother because the child will die regardless.

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If the mother is in danger then the baby is in danger, depending on the gestational period. A baby can survive outside of the womb as early as six months, but, of course, they will be premature.

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." -C.S. Lewis