Posted on 09/25/2004 7:43:07 PM PDT by Lorianne
Imagine you're the head of a women's group that backs abortion. In your quest to elect candidates who agree with your position, you're likely to talk up the importance of the issue to your membership and how they are excited to vote for like-minded candidates.
Yet, the political director of a nationally renown pro-abortion organization told the Christian Science Monitor newspaper that abortion is not an issue that drive women voters -- nor is it their top priority.
Karen White of Emily's List, a political organization that backs pro-abortion candidates, says abortion "is not an issue where a woman wakes up every morning and says, 'I am going to look up what my candidate thinks on abortion.'"
"Now, while it may be an important issue, and she may have a very strong opinion about it, [it] is not what is driving her to vote," White admitted.
In fact, White told the Monitor newspaper that the top issue for women is the war in Iraq and the number one issue for women swing voters is health care.
Perhaps White is acknowledging a June 2003 poll conducted by the Center for the Advancement of Women, which also backs abortion.
The survey found that 51% took a pro-life position opposing most or all abortions while only thirty percent said it should be generally available.
The poll also found that keeping abortion legal was the next to last most important priority for women. Fewer than half (41%) cite preserving abortion as a priority -- down from 49 percent in 2001.
In comparison, 92% list domestic violence and assault as a primary concern. A close second (90%) is equal pay for equal work. Also of greater importance to women is the ability to take time off to care for family (74%), reducing drug & alcohol addiction (72%) and increasing women's study of math, science, and technology (66%).
Jennifer Bingham of the Susan B. Anthony List, a pro-life group that works to elect pro-life women to public office, tells LifeNews.com the media has painted a false impression that a majority of women support abortion.
"Poll after poll is showing that more and more American women are classifying themselves as pro-life," Bingham said. "After 30 years of the message that 'choice' means a women's right to choose an abortion -- women are finally expressing choice as the right to have a child."
Meanwhile, an October 2003 poll conducted by Emily's List found that President Bush does just as well with women voters as with, at the time, an unnamed Democratic presidential candidate.
Among women, 42 percent said they would likely support the Democratic nominee while 39 percent said they would back President Bush.
In 1996, Bill Clinton defeated Bob Dole by 16 percent among women voters. Bush cut the so-called "gender gap" to 11 in 2000.
"Plus, do we really want to start policing pregnant women? How is that consistent with a free society? "
We really want to start policing the right to life of unborn babies. That is VERY consistent with a free society. If my mom was pregnat of me and wanted an abortion because she is in control of her body, and I could talk by myself, I would tell her: "No, mom, make no mistake. It's my body, not yours, and you have no right on taking the life of MY body". But I wouldn't be able to talk. So I would need adults from the outside to defend MY body and MY right to live.
Can you please tell me when the fetus reaches "personhood"?. I have seen the pic of aborted fetuses. TERRIBLE!!!!. I couldn't sleep well in months. With the shape of little persons...all mutilated...one arm here, one head there....If it's poison that is inserted, he moves to scape, because he already has the instict of survival. But of course he is trapped. The recovery of the great trauma of a rape or incest is not going to heal for the fact of killing the baby. It's not his fault. We have to fight against any possible discrimination that the mom could suffer, and offer her and the baby all our support.
I think it's terrible that an impending life has to be thought of as an inconvenience and that some women feel they have to destroy a potential life. But for me the issue is do women as free thinking moral agents have the right to decide about important life altering events like pregnancy? The abortion issue is a terrible dilemma for me when I look at it this way. The other issue is what are we doing to reduce the demand for abortion? Are we advocating for more sexually responsible behavior? Are we advocating for better birth control methods? Are we making sure unwanted children have homes they can go to? Are we offering pregnant women non-judgmental help to make a decision for life? It's easy to sit back in judgment and call women wicked, loose sluts. It's easy to outlaw abortion and drive women into back alleys again. But it doesn't solve the problem. To me abortion is a soul murder. It's the murder of potential life, of love, of a woman's own future. She's killing a part of herself. I wouldn't choose it. But at least in America I can choose. That's why I'm pro-choice, not pro-abortion. I know it doesn't make sense to some, but there it is.
Can we start the killing-my-annoying-neighbor pro-choice Association?. Let's limit it to annoying neighbours younger than 25 and older than 42. We can hope that people will be responsible enough to not use the choice.
I don't know.
I agree. It doesn't make sense to some.
Interesting how everybody just copped out of this discussion and never answered my questions.
I did answer your questions.
That is so ridiculously silly, I hardly know what to write.
Fetuses are not yet babies! They're only babies in the minds of happily expectant parents. None of us had a right to anything before we were born. You know why? Because it's up to your parents whether or not you are even conceived. That's just the way it works. Likewise a fetus, a human life, and a potential person in the making, is nurtured in the body of a woman and lives as a developing organism by virtue of the woman. Because the fetus is not a baby (or even a person yet) and completely incapable of making decisions, the woman in whose body it resides and is living off of gets to decide, period. That's the way it is, like it or not. And since we do live in a free society, it isn't up to me or you to make decisions for the woman as to what she will do with the life growing inside of her. There simply exists no compelling reason for the state to interfere, especially in the first trimester, when the vast majority of abortions occur. Frankly, I'm more concerned about children, young persons already born being looked after. Better we spend our efforts thinking about them.
Yet the Gerald Ford type of GOP'ers will still insist that the GOP abandon the "extreme" pro-life position because it "alienates" moderate swing voters.
These were my questions:
Do you honestly believe that if a holocaust of children was going on in this country that everyone, libs, conservatives, mods, whomever, and especially women, wouldn't say it's murder and rise up to do something about it? I don't happen to believe that fetuses are children. They are on their way to being children and live as children in the minds of happily expectant parents, but have no yet achieved personhood. Lot's of people believe as I do, people of many faiths believe as I do. But are you ready to start policing pregnant women in a free society? Are you ready to tell me here and now that a fetus is more important than the woman on whom it depends for life? Are you ready to tell me that you don't care if women die if abortion is outlawed? That they're all filthy sluts that deserve to die because of their indiscretion, whether that indiscretion be rape, incest, or just having a body weakened by diabetes or heart disease? Just let me know.
>Can you please tell me when the fetus reaches "personhood"?. I have seen the pic of aborted fetuses. TERRIBLE!!!!. I couldn't sleep well in months. With the shape of little persons...all mutilated...one arm here, one head there....If it's poison that is inserted, he moves to scape, because he already has the instict of survival. But of course he is trapped. The recovery of the great trauma of a rape or incest is not going to heal for the fact of killing the baby. It's not his fault. We have to fight against any possible discrimination that the mom could suffer, and offer her and the baby all our support.<
I have seen those propoganda photos too. Most abortions occur in the first trimester when the fetus is no where near the size you witnessed. What I've read they don't insert any poison into a woman. They use suction. But I would agree with you that an abortion is no pancea for the trauma of rape. Maybe some women would feel better somewhat knowing that they're not carrying the potential child of a rapist. True, the fetus is innocent. But I couldn't tell a woman you have to make this sacrafice and bear this child even though you've been raped. It's not up to me to make that decision for her, and it sure as hell isn't up to the state. As far as personhood, you're a person when you are born and have finally joined the world, your community, and your family in my opinion. There's no way to protect fetuses without making the rights of the mother secondary. You will see the state jailing pregnant women and forcing them to bear children against their wills, or maybe to avoid abortion all together for chronically ill women they might force them to be sterilized. When the state gets involved in matters this personal its a disaster. Look at China. They force women to have only one child and if they try to have more they are forced to abort! Thank G-d this is America and women have choice.
Advocating for abortion renders the advocate "liberal", if anything does. How can you favor the legality of abortion and simultaneously deny being liberal?
The abortion issue have a signficant impact on how I vote. I choose pro-life candidates.
Hogwash. If women die getting back alley abortions, they killed themselves by their choices.
If abortion were made illegal, there'd be far fewer abortions. Many, MANY more lives would be saved than lost.
Many of those on your list haven risen up thus far. So the answer is no.
A little thought experiment:
"I am pro-choice not pro-femicide. I think men are smart enough to decide how to handle their unwanted women. I also think it's unfair of you to characterize every man who seeks femicide as a "promiscuous horndog" who seeks to terminate a woman at the drop of the hat. Sometimes a man gets drunk and ends up in a bed with a woman; sometimes he acquires a woman for a little sport and then she decides she wants MORE; and sometimes a guy is just tired of having this female in his life. It should be his CHOICE when and how to terminate an unwanted relationship...
".. [F]emicide has been around for a long time; it was made illegal and the domestic partner-abuse and divorce and wife-abuse rate shot sky-high. Plus, do we really want to start policing freedom-loving men? How is that consistent with a free society? ...Every man has the freedom to end an unwanted relationship in the way he sees fit. Walk out the door, cut off her damn feeding tube, or Smith & Wesson. FREEDOM, CHOICE being the operative words here. P.S. I am no liberal."
You sent you comment to me, and I don't know why. I don't remember writing anything in this thread. But it is OK. I still don't understand what you mean.
I've reviewed. Yes I wrote in that thread. But I still don't understand what you mean.
"Can we start the killing-my-annoying-neighbor pro-choice Association?. Let's limit it to annoying neighbours younger than 25 and older than 42. We can hope that people will be responsible enough to not use the choice."
You made the same point I was making, namely, if this "pro-choice" stuff is really a matter of principle, and not just a custom-made cop-out, then it must be applicable to a wide range of instances. For example, you wonder why you couldn't be pro-choice in terms of terminating annoying neighbors. My example was a Free American Male making the choice to terminate his girlfriend or wife.
The bottom line: "pro-choice" falls apart because we really can't tolerate private choices for a course of action which involves a victim.
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