Posted on 10/10/2004 9:03:39 AM PDT by cpurick
I don't have a well-founded position on abortion, because I honestly don't know when life begins.
But Kerry's answer on abortion, in the second presidential debate, was ridiculous:
"...I cannot tell you how deeply I respect the belief about life and when it begins. I'm a Catholic, raised a Catholic...Religion has been a huge part of my life...But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith..."
One of the most revealing aspects of the abortion issue is that the two camps are seldom thought of as "pro-abortion" and "anti-abortion." In fact, neither side's case is a statement on the matter of abortion; both sides describe their respective position in terms of an underlying philosophical priority.
The "pro-choice" crowd maintains that abortion is an idividual decision, while the "pro-life" crowd sees it as murder.
The two camps are not as far apart as the heat of the struggle suggests. In fact, both positions are completely consistent and thoroughly American, and differ only on the answer to one monumental question: When does life begin? And this, of course, has always been at the heart of the debate.
You don't have to have a solid answer to the question to take a side. For example, one could argue -- absent conclusive evidence that life has begun -- that abortion should be the mother's choice. Or, you could reasonably argue that the benefit of the doubt belongs to the unborn.
Those are the well-reasoned positions of individuals who are not certain when life begins.
The one position -- on the matter of when life begins -- that is completely inconsistent with the pro-choice stance, is the view that life begins at conception. That is the Catholic position. Supposedly, that is John Kerry's position.
But that is also the entire basis of the pro-life position. The pro-life camp does not oppose choice; they simply can't rationalize that anyone has the power of choice when it comes to the life of another. Again, this is something we all agree with, it's just that pro-life supporters have a very strong conviction about when that life comes into being.
For John Kerry to accept the Catholic article of faith -- that life begins at conception -- and then to define pro-life policy as if it were "an imposition on people of differing faiths" is absurd. If Kerry had any conviction, at all, about life beginning at conception, he'd know that differences of faith are simply irrelevant: the government's role is to protect life. Even from people who might not recognize that life where it exists.
Kerry's position is like saying, "I believe abortion is murder, but I have no right to save the lives of those who are being murdered by others who don't view it as murder." Simply absurd.
On the campaign, it's difficult to tell if Kerry really has any convictions about anything, though it's interesting to note that George Bush has no qualms about discussing his position on abortion -- even at the risk of losing many votes.
Kerry's Senate record on abortion is not consistent with the personal views he claims to hold, and it's even more disconcerting to think he claims that position out of mere political convenience.
More and more, it seems to me that John Kerry's only core value is that he believes he should be President. When's the last time anyone saw him take an actual stand on anything he could account for?
You won't be corrected.
[B] The "pro-choice" crowd maintains that abortion is an idividual decision, while the "pro-life" crowd sees it as murder. [/B]
But isn't murder an individual decision? I see the difference being that both sides admit it is murder, but one side sees an obligation to prevent it and the other side believes that it's up to each person to decide [I] and whatever they decided is okay. [/I]
I am firmly against abortion and would neither have one nor counsel anyone else to have one, and I also do not counsel people to beat their children to death, shoot their ex-wives, behead their girl friend's dog, or set frie to the home of an abortion doctor. Neither do I thinkn that the fact that someone decides to do these things means I am bound to support their decision. I am not.
The difference between me and Kerry is that I have thought about my position and I can defend it. He has not and he can't.
Yes, John Kerry "believes life begins at conception" and is a "Catholic" yet many priests in his own Catholic Church think he should not receive Holy Communion because his voting record DOES NOT REFLECT THE CHURCH BELIEFS!
Kerry was against abortion before he voted for abortion. It is just another example showing that there isn't a side of an issue he isn't for. It's hard to believe that the state of Massachusetts would keep someone like him in office for 20 years (I forgot they've also left Ted Kennedy in office, even after his questionable actions in the death of Mary Jo Kopeckne). Is there any better examples for term limits than these two.
There's life in a fertilized chicken egg.
The question is when does the soul enter the body? There are many valid belif systems that think the soul enters the body varying amounts of time after conception.
Kerry uses his religion for what he feels benefits him. Thats all, no more no less. That is the sign of a person who has no morals. If we had rejected this communist hippy generation revolution in the 60s, we would not be talking of legislation of morality in the halls of congress now.
You cannot legislate morality...it starts at home through the teaching of respect by parents to their children. And you know fully well what the democratic party has done to the family over the years.
Like require people who disagree to pay for it?
What Kerry is saying is that "I think abortion is murder but I don't have the strength of character to vote with my convictions."
Bush should have nailed him on this and then asked the audience if Kerry can't make a tough decision to vote against what he believes is murder how can you trust him to make the difficult choices a comnmander in chief during war time has to make?
who knows when life begins? NEWSFLASH: we can keep pregnancy from happening!!! as a mature woman i know that there many, many ways to keep from getting pregnant and all it takes is a little advance planning or self control. since sex should be for grown ups, this shouldn't be too big an assignment. i for one am sick of hearing about abortion year in and year out. this discussion started 30 years ago when forms of birth control were virtually nonexistent or hard to procure. that is no longer the case. of course in terms of rape, incest, i think it is understandable to have abortion available. otherwise, ladies and gents, take responsibility for your sex life. as for late term abortion, we consider ourselves a civilized society and this is a barbaric procedure. as a society some of us apparently have more sympathy for pets than we do for a late-term baby.
The "pro-choice" crowd maintains that abortion is an idividual decision, while the "pro-life" crowd sees it as murder.
I would rewrite this sentence to read:
The "pro-choice" crowd maintains that abortion (the killing of a fetus) is everyone's legal right -- according to their conscience -- without any legal repercusions.
While the "pro-life" crowds sees abortion (the killing of a fetus) as murder and therefore punishable by law.
If I knew nothing else about Kerry, this statement alone would be enough to never vote for him. This insanity that you can believe something is a human being but you don't have the guts to stand up and defend it is not only immoral, it is evil. What an absolute dirtbag. He's going straight to hell.
His argument was ridiculous on another level, when he said that he voted against the PBA ban because it doesn't include an exception for the life or health of the mother. For that not to jump out at someone requires them to have no idea what Partial Birth Abortion is. The PBA procedure is only done on late-term babies who are generally (if not always) of sufficient development for life outside the womb. First, labor is induced. PBA then requires a woman to go through all of the hazards of giving birth, and then, at the last moment, physically keeping the babies head inside and rotating the body out so as to kill the baby. From the health vantagepoint of the mother, she has given birth.
The purpose of Partial Birth Abortion is not medical in any way, but rather was designed to evade legal definitions of birth - keeping the head of the baby inside the mothers body until the baby can be killed, so as not to be legally considered infanticide.
There is a reason why even most pro-abortion groups condemn the practice.
Just posted an article that well demolishes this smoke and mirrors load of bovine execrement.
A big question on the table is - If a President swears to uphold the Constitution, how does he oppose something that is Constitutional?
So Senator Kerry, would you have legislated against slavery? I mean, personally you may have found it abhorent, but others didn't "share that article" of thought.
How about murder, Mr. Senator. The Islamic religion says its okay to kill infidels. So why are you spouting off about fighting a war on terror? Isn't that an example of where you are trying to enforce your "article of belief" upon others?
I could go on and on with other examples, but the bottom line is that Kerry has no spine.
Is there ever a time when the zygote/embryo/fetus/baby is dead? In other words, from conception...through all the stages of growth...is there ever a time when the human is dead? There's your answer.
Ask and biologist this question, without reference to abortion or politics--just this simple factual question: In a sexually-reproducing species, at what point does the life of a new individual member of that species begin? The answer you will get from any competent biologist is: at the moment of fertilization--i.e., when the gametes from the two parents unite, forming a new nucleus with a set of DNA unlike the DNA in the somatic cells in either parent. All the shifts of terminology spread through journalism--such as the claim that "life" begins at implantation, or at some later point, are politically motivated.
Not at all. The question is when does a human life begin? We already know that is is wrong to kill innocent human life. The matter of the soul has no place in the argument.
CINO...
Catholic in name only! He is no more Catholic in his daily life than Ghengis Khan!
Deacon Francis
BTW: It is NOT an article of the Catholic Faith that life begins at conception. It IS an article of Catholic Faith that John Kerry is a lying, blaspheming scumbag.
...and there are those who would ingorantly gamble on when this takes place -- if this belief is even valid.
I absolutely can't stand it when people argue that it isn't their place to legislate morality. What do they think all of our laws do. Murder and theft are both morality points, as are most of our other laws, many of them based on biblical principles, but oh no, we can't legislate abortion. It is rediculous. Either it is a child or it isn't
In arguing for abortion only the NARAL types who deny life in the womb can be consistent. All others, especially Catholics who say they accept, privately, the Church's teaching are open to vast inconsistencies and hypocrisies.Some like Mario Cuomo employ corruptions of philosophical and theological ideas to support the unsupportable. Some, like Kerry, are just fumbling for a response in the hopes the moderator will say'next question.'
You have correctly stated, with considerable insight, that the heart of the matter is "When Does Life Begin?" My personal response is simple: If Life has not begun, then why is a destructive surgical procedure needed to end it? If what is being "terminated" is not Human, then what is it? Perhaps it's just another self-aggrandizing prevarication that will someday run for President.
"...But I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who doesn't share that article of faith..."
That is the kind of statement that evokes a comforting feeling for the many Americans who take religion as something that feels goods, but don't want religion to get in the way of 'serious' matters concerning what we want.
For anyone bothering to think about it, his statement is terribly absurd. Catholicism also believes you shouldn't steal. So do we have laws against stealing, or exclude doing so because our religion instructs our consciences?
At bottom, laws are to protect the innocent, applying a standard other than 'might makes right' to maintain order. Abortion directly refutes this if you recognize the humanity of the fetus, which Kerry acknowledges.
It would almost be better if he was pretending not to allow for the humanity of life from conception. As it is, we know he would compromise anything for his gain.
-- Joe
Life begins at conception, thats a scientific fact, has nothing to do with religion. Kerry has stated that he believes "life begins at conception" but being an apostate Catholic he still votes to allow babies to be ripped limb from limb on the way out. He's a disgrace.
Which is to say, I think the mere potentiality of harboring a soul is sufficient to place a human embryo on a level where it isn't just another commodity. If one could firmly determine that a soul arrives on Day 36, would there be no respect due it on Day 35? Is it wise to put an ideational on-off switch on one's reverence for life? Does it nourish that reverence or undercut it?
What about the FATHER?
I used to be "pro-choice". Then it occurred to me that the father is never given the chance to choose an abortion. Conversely, if the baby is born, the father is legally bound to support the baby financially for 18 years - again NO CHOICE.
The pro-choice movement is sexist and anti-father.
When does life begin? Check with your nearest biologist, it begins at conception. The real question is at what point do we recognize unborn life as being something worthy of protection.
Just remember, if you can't trust your President to protect the least of us, how can you trust him to protect any of us.
This argument descends from a deliberate blurring of concepts.
A legislature cannot (sanely) create a law which makes a person moral. What it can do, is create a law which prohibits specified immoral acts.
So, while it is true that one cannot legislate morality itself, it is not true that effective laws cannot be based upon morals.
Very, very good. There are other issues here, however: opposition to abortion is not now, has not been historically, and should never be portrayed as the rabid claim of the radical religious right. Undoing milennia of traditional civilized thinking on this subject shows the extent to which the feminist movement, the liberal media, and downright corrupt churches have successfully blurred lines between good and evil, right and wrong. Consider that the Hippocratic Oath has been replaced by optional and highly questionable "ethical" promises of medical integrity. Hippocrates was neither Catholic, Christian, Jew, nor monotheist; but his oath, long recognized throughout the world and throughout history as the synthesis of medical ethics, had to be amended or entirely eliminated as the result of the corrupt, erroneous "logic," the demonstrably perverted perception of U. S. Constitional "law" (along with law in general) by five supremely ignorant Supreme Court justices.
Why? Because the Hippocratic Oath--all five/six paragraphs of it--specifically, unconditionally, prohibits abortion
The Oath
By Hippocrates
Written 400 B.C.E
Translated by Francis Adams
I SWEAR by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!
The when-does-life-begin issue hardly affects Mr. Kerry's thinking: anyone who seriously believes that partial-birth abortion can be justified on the basis of sustaining the health of the mother not only shouldn't be legislating, but probably shouldn't be voting at the polls, driving a car or even trusted not add Drano mistakenly to his coffee. Under what conceivable circumstances is the gruesome, barbaric, implement-laden process of PBA SAFER than a live birth? Reasonable, sane people see this process correctly as infanticide. Yet, Mr. I'm-a-Catholic-was-an-altar-boy-I-believe-that-life-begins-at-conception Kerry wants that feminist vote badly enough to reject not simply his doctrinal (and, one presumes, Judao-Christian) faith but the commonest of common sense.
This is hypocrisy on a scale only Kerry himself has matched: his 1971 testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he declared all Vietnam servicemen war criminals and advocating to our country the objectives of our enemies--causing the loss of countless American lives and close to two million American reputations to an enemy he'd supported and reinvigorated.
This is nothing new for Mr. Oportunism. Life is just one more commodity for trading up.
Every one of our laws is part of our belief that what is right for one person should be right for the whole community and what is wrong for one person should be wrong for all. Kerry says that he believes that life begins at conception but it is not right to have a law against the taking of that life because some others may not hold his same faith. What he is saying is this life is not worthy of a law to protect it because the beliefs of those who do not value life would be too constrained by the law.
I guess this could explain why he has authored so few bills in his 20 years in the Senate. He has no convictions that are worth writing down.
Let me help you.
The embryo, from the time of the fertilization of the egg by the sperm, has a different DNA than either parent. Different fingerprints as soon as the fingers develop, possibly a different blood type than either parent, possibly a different eye color, different hair structure and color. It is a diferent being. A separate being. A living being, although dependant on its host for 9 more months in the womb and 18 years outside of the womb.
It's clear to see that life begins at conception.
I honestly don't know when life begins.
Let me help you.
The embryo, from the time of the fertilization of the egg by the sperm, has a different DNA than either parent. Different fingerprints as soon as the fingers develop, possibly a different blood type than either parent, possibly a different eye color, different hair structure and color.
The embryo is a diferent being. A separate being. A living being, although dependant on its host for 9 more months in the womb and 18 years outside of the womb.
It's clear to see that life begins at conception.
No, you've got it all wrong about what sKerry would have said in the 1800s.
"Slavery is against my religion, but I am too open minded to push my religion on others. Therefore it is none of my business if my wealthy wife keeps slaves -- after all, she inherited them from her dead husband. And if she wants to use her slaves to lavish attention on me, that is her privilege, because it is a woman's right to choose." sarcasm/off
At a little more than an inch long, the developing life is now called a fetus — Latin for "young one" or "offspring."
Everything is now present that will be found in a fully-developed adult.
The heart has been beating for more than a month, the stomach produces digestive juices and the kidneys have begun to function
.
.
Would you say that this fetus is "alive". If your answer is yes, then by your definition of the argument, you must call 90%-95% of the Abortions in this country "murder." Almost no abortions take place before the 8th week.
Kerry's remark just pegged the bullsh-t meter.
Kerry's position on abortion --- every tax payer who believes abortion is the killing of a human being would be required to pay for these killings. He is an extremist on the pro-abortion side.
That is pretty much Kerry's position on abortion in a nutshell.
Kerry is more or less saying "I respect your views, but the hell with you. I will take your money to pay for abortions.".
I thought Kerry is all for science. He is letting religious beliefs or conscience decide the law of our land with his position. It is a scientific fact that at the time of fertilization a new organism has been formed. I really believe that future generations will look back on abortion with repulsion like we now do with slavery. They will wonder how could they??????? This idea of when "life" begins is a religious or philosophical question but it is not scientific.
My biggest comlaint w/ the abortion issue is the whole "when life begins" argument.
There is no "life beginning" moment. What we have are two living cells which combine. But there is no sudden lighting strike which bring the combined cells to life, because THEY ARE ALREADY LIVING prior to their being combined. What you have is the creation of a new member of the species.
And everything that makes this new species member unique is there at the moment that the two individual cells' nuclei combine. So, the whole idea of when life begins is a moot point.!!
What our species does, is place a higher value on the life of the mother because, heck, she's a lot bigger and we can see and touch her. But, the flaw in this thinking is making her more important to the species than the child which is living inside of her.
Yes, she's more important to herself, maybe even to her friends or family, but she isn't more important than the other members of the species now, is she. In fact, the child within may very well provide more for the species than the mother. So, when looking at this delimma, any rational thought must weigh the two lives, that of the mother and that of the child, equally.
Therefore, the whole procedure of abortion does nothing but hurt the species by denying possibly meaningful members the chance to develop. And, if one assumes that continuation of the species is the ultimate goal, then any species which allows abortion does not wish to continue, but is, in fact, committing suicide.
Note: I am purposely not bringing religion in to my argument because too many people are too darn quick to classify and if I were to say that I believe in God, then the simpleminded will immediately shut down and say "right-wing religious zealot". So, I use simple scientific/socological concepts without bringing religion in.
I've heard many people say the Republicans and the Democrats have switched positions since the time of Lincoln. However, your point shows that, at least on the topic of serious moral issues, they have not. It is my belief the two Parties are the same as they ever were. One party supports the strength found in a States which are united, they other diligently tries to tear that unity usunder. The only thing that has changed between the two Parties is their geography.
Muleteam1
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