Please freepmail me if you want on/off this list
Posted on 03/02/2008 1:22:18 PM PST by rface
Don Welter’s letter in the Jan. 28 Tribune contains too many errors to respond to in one letter.
Although fetal tissue being human and alive is neither enlightening nor controversial, the idea such tissue is a person is an issue of Catholic superstition and not biological fact. That women, however, are persons, is a fact with which even the anti-abortionists must agree.
Bernie Nathanson prostituted himself to the Catholic Church. After becoming a toady, he called himself a self-declared liar. Why in the world should we believe him now?
Christopher Tietsie, a biostatistician, said the number of women killed annually by illegal abortion was hard to quantify, but we had hard data on about 300, and he estimated 500 to 1,000 women killed before legalization. Anti-abortionists glibly write off these 17,500 to 35,000 lives to this date and weep crocodile tears for fetal tissue, 93 percent of the time the size of an acorn or smaller (first trimester). The psychopaths who murdered medical clinic personnel all insisted they be called "pro-life."
Most religions in the nation favor a woman’s right to choose, including Methodists, Presbyterians, Jews, Episcopalians, United Church of Christ, American Baptists, Unitarians and many others. Women will not tolerate going back to re-criminalized abortion, after 35 years, to please a primitive church. The five Roman Catholics on the nine-justice U.S. Supreme Court would have to rewrite constitutional law - which would be unprecedented.
I bet he would never write a column titled: Primitive Islam behind the Times on Abortion.
but I must ask....Where does Islam stand in regard to abotion?
.
I’m a Proud Primitive!
You have to be advanced to want to save and protect the fetus.
What does God say?
It kills me how those who claim no religion spend so much time hating, instead of enjoying their godless lives.
What could possibly be missing...
This Primitive Catholics are just as bad as those crazy Southern Baptist.
ping
Higdon: I have to give in; the fetus is a unique, living human. That’s the science. Ok, but I haven’t decided they are ‘persons’, something I’ll define as coming into being when I think it does based on nothing more than my opinion.
Me: Yeah, it’s Catholic thinking that is supersticious. (sarcasm off)
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic List:
Please ping me to note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
This guy is just another atheist bigot who is incensed that the Catholic Church - and most Protestant evangelical churches - dare oppose one of the leftist's bedrock principles: the alleged 'right' to the taking of helpless, innocent human life in the womb, which diminishes life and opens to door to all sorts of mischief, as we well know, 35 years post-Roe.
I'm not a Muslim, but to my knowledge, although there is no direct approval of abortion in Islamic teaching, there is no absolute ban on it, either This leaves the issue theologically cloudy and somewhat 'situational', except that the harming of a fully-formed 'fetus' would likely be condemned by Islamic law.
Perhaps an Islamic scholar could clarify the issue, but again, there are ambiguities in Islamic law regarding abortion. Generally, just like many Americans, I would surmise that most Muslims would be against it, except in 'special' situations, especially if the 'situation' involved themselves - or a close family member.
It is evident that this so called PhD has no real education or his IQ is so low that he know nothing.
The Constitution does not say one thing about abortion. It is one of the many powers that were left to the states or the people. But of course the anti-American left-wing fascist like John Higdon say the Constitution says many things that it does not.
The judges of the Supreme Court violated the Constitution when they made the pro abortion law. The Constitution gives the power to make law to the Congress only and not the courts.
But as we all know no one in the Congress or we the people have the guts to impeach those of the courts who violate their powers under the Constitution.
The newspaper published this POS? What a Nazi sack of crap this guy is.
How times have changed. Proponents of human sacrifice used to be considered members of primitive religions.
Hey Monk you know what we wouldn’t have Roe vs Wade if some crazy Supreme court didn’t make up laws HELLO
Higdon’s mother should have had an abortion.
Okay, this guy is a dumb-mass. He’s worried about how us pro-lifers are writing off the numbers of women that died having an illegal abortion, but doesn’t understand that we mourn their loss of life as well. Abortion killed the women.
Abortion kills.
I’m prolife because I’m against killing humans. I cannot see how this is difficult to understand. Oh, he’s “highly educated” and teaching others. Wonderful.
Wonder if the know-it-all depicted above has the stats on the number of women and teens who have killed themselves post-abortion... understand that there are psychological problems associated with taking your baby’s life.
What are the stats on women who have had abortions who have killed themselves? What about women who have had abortions who have become insane in remorse?
Higdon is going to find out exactly what primitive is following his particular judgment.
Higdonn is another left wing loonie with an agenda excepting his own life.
I ponder, for all Christians to ask themselves, what would Jesus have to say about the abortion ovens? Would he demonstrate outside on the street and would he speak to those entering the facility of death.
Don't think so.
this=thus
Heres an idea for that goofball...if you not believe in the teachings of a religion, then dont follow that religion.
This guy uses writing as a form of masterbation.
I propose we treat the unborn human with no more and no less respect than we treat the unborn of endangered species.
Would we allow someone to kill the unborn Spotted Owl? No, in fact, we are so intent on protecting that species we would call out a SWAT team if necessary to protect the nest, the eggs and the adults.
Based on ask an Imam.com, forbidden unless to save the mother.
The fact is that every "person," even Higdon, had to go through a phase of being a developing fetus. It's as if Higdon says he respects the value of butterflies, but thinks it's OK to kill caterpillars, who he might describe as just gooey little worms. He really is saying that the strong have a right to kill the weak as a matter of convenience. It's no surprise that abortion is the foot in the door, and is quickly followed by attacks on the handicapped, aged and infirm, and anyone else who can be overpowered.
How many people die from abortions?
About half of them.
In 50 years, this man will be dead, and the Catholic Church and immutable Truth will live on.
bookmark for later.
Wow!
The bigots on the left are something else.
She's now a geriatric nurse practitioner but she's still haunted by those women especially the teenagers some as young as 13... horrible. She lasted at that clinic for two weeks...
The ones that will listen generally tune out at the first mention of God or religion as a basis for being against aborting innocent babies in the womb.
3D and 4D Ultrasound and the science related are making the Pro-Life case in a very compelling way. But the legal history pre-Roe and the American Medical Associations own words about the "crime of abortion; that it avow its true nature, as no simple offence against public morality and decency, no mere misdemeanor, no attempt upon the life of the mother, but the wanton and murderous destruction of her child." are a powerful tool also:
A BRIEF SURVEY OF US ABORTION LAW BEFORE THE 1973 DECISION
By Brian Young (excerpts) http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLIFE/LIFBFROE.TXT
In the years prior to and immediately after the American Revolution, colonists and citizens followed the rule of law brought by British settlers, the “common law.” Rather than being a code of statutes passed by a legislature and printed in a book, the common law was a set of legal standards established in England through court decisions and legal custom.
According to Sir William Blackstone, the renowned 18th century English jurist, under common law, the abortion of a ‘quickened’ fetus was a ‘very heinous misdemeanor.’ At that time the penalty for misdemeanors could be severe; loss of a limb, confiscation of property or life in prison.
‘Quickening’ - when a pregnant woman first feels her child move - generally occurs in the fourth month. Scholars have noted that the common law requirement of a ‘quickened’ baby for the crime of abortion was probably based on a very practical consideration. Since there were no pregnancy tests in the 18th century, evidence that a baby’s movement had been felt might have been the only way to establish with any certainty in a court of law that a pregnancy had existed.
The abandonment of the “quickening” requirement coincided with the 19th century discovery of how conception takes place. The public, lawmakers and jurists were becoming aware of the scientific fact that life begins when a sperm enters an ovum.
Abortion Statutes of the 19th & 20th Centuries (excerpts) http://www.missourilife.org/law/preroe.htm
During the first decades of the 1800’s, scientists began to understand the cellular basis of life and for the first time were able to observe the process of fertilization in mammals. As the stages of development became clear, it also became clear that abortion kills a living human being, no matter what the stage of the child’s development. The resulting scientific knowledge about the process of conception and development led to efforts to enact stronger bans on abortion. In addition, scientific progress allowed for surgical means of performing abortion, and abortion was perceived to be on the increase. Beginning in 1859, the American Medical Association called for strong anti-abortion laws and vigorous enforcement of them. In view of the claim by twentieth century abortionists that physicians did this only to protect their own profession or solely to protect women’s health, it is useful to quote the doctors themselves on why they wanted action by the states:
“The first of these causes is a wide-spread popular ignorance of the true character of the crime—a belief, even among mothers themselves, that the foetus is not alive till after the period of quickening.
“The second of the agents alluded to is the fact that the profession themselves are frequently supposed careless of fetal life; . . .
“The third reason of the frightful extent of this crime is found in the grave defects of our laws, both common and statute, as regards the independent and actual existence of the child before birth, as a living being.
“In accordance, therefore, with the facts in the case, the Committee would advise that this body, representing, as it does, the physicians of the land, publicly express its abhorrence of the unnatural and now rapidly increasing crime of abortion; that it avow its true nature, as no simple offence against public morality and decency, no mere misdemeanor, no attempt upon the life of the mother, but the wanton and murderous destruction of her child. . “ Volume 12, Transactions of the American Medical Association, pp. 75-78 (1859).
The AMA adopted the recommendation described above and sponsored initiatives in all states, spurring most legislatures to enact strong prohibitions upon abortion that swept away the “quickening” distinction. In the remaining states, abortion remained prohibited by common law.
A BRIEF SURVEY OF US ABORTION LAW BEFORE THE 1973 DECISION
by Brian Young (excerpts) http://www.ewtn.com/library/PROLIFE/LIFBFROE.TXT
Pro-abortion historians claim that these laws were passed primarily, if not solely, to protect women from possibly fatal abortions. Concern for pre-term babies was not a factor, they claim. Yet, as law professor Joseph Dellapenna has noted, all surgeries at that time involved substantial risks of death. If legislators were motivated to pass anti-abortion statutes only to protect women, why did they not protect other patients by banning other potentially dangerous fatal elective surgeries?
Coincidentally or not, during this period of pro-life legislative activity Congress passed and 28 states ratified the 14th Amendment, prohibiting any state from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property without the due process of law.”
By 1910, every state except Kentucky had passed an anti-abortion law (and Kentucky’s courts had declared abortion at any stage of gestation to be illegal).
By 1967, not much had changed. In 49 states, abortion was a felony; in New Jersey, it was a high misdemeanor. Furthermore, 29 states banned abortion advertising, and many outlawed the manufacture or distribution of abortifacients. In 1967, though, state abortion laws began to change, but only after years of organized campaigns by pro-abortion forces.
The American Law Institute (ALI) proposed, in its 1959 model criminal code for all the states, a “reform” abortion law. The model bill, approved by ALI in 1962, declared that abortion should be permitted for the physical or mental health of the mother, for fetal abnormality, and for rape or incest.
While leaders of the American legal community were promoting radical changes in state abortion law, a 1962 case in Arizona generated sympathetic press coverage of the notion of “justifiable abortion.”
Mrs. Sherri Finkbine, a married mother, made public her intention to abort her fifth child. She had taken some tranquilizers/sleeping pills her husband had brought home from a trip to England. The pills turned out to be Thalidomide, a drug that had become associated with birth defects. Fearful of giving birth to a handicapped child, Mrs Finkbine traveled to Sweden, where she had her baby aborted.
In June 1967, the American Medical Association voted to change that body’s long-standing opposition to abortion. With a new resolution, the AMA now condoned abortion for the life or health of the mother, for a baby’s ‘incapacitating’ physical deformity or mental deficiency, or for cases of rape or incest.
That same year, Colorado, North Carolina, and California became the first states to adopt versions of the ALI “reform” abortion law. By 1970, though, four states - New York, Alaska, Hawaii and Washington - passed laws that basically allowed abortion on demand. Of those four, New York’s was the only law without a residency requirement and the state quickly became the nation’s abortion capital.
The pro-abortion onslaught was beginning to face opposition, though, as pro-life forces organized. In 1972, the New York legislature voted to repeal the state’s liberal abortion law, but Governor Nelson Rockefeller vetoed the repeal. Ballot questions in Michigan and North Dakota in 1972 attempted to decriminalize abortion; the measures were defeated by majorities of 63% and 78%, respectively.
Just as pro-lifers were beginning to turn the tide however, the Supreme Court handed down Roe vs Wade in January 1973. With one judicial stroke, over 200 years of legal protection for the unborn was rendered null and void. For the first time in American history, abortion was the “law of the land”.
thanks.
Good. Our enemies help to define us.
Which is one of the reasons I crossed the Tiber four years ago.
No, the Catholic Church is not behind the times on the issue of abortion. Just as in the Constitution of the United States (life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness — remember?) the Catholic Church has always stood for life in all circumstances.
Abortion
Euthanasia
Etc.
For over 2000 years, and the gates of hell have not prevailed against the Mother Church yet.
God bless all Catholics for supporting life!
| 1: | CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2271 (618 bytes ) preview document matches 1 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2271.htm |
97%  |
| 2: | CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2272 (580 bytes ) preview document matches 2 Formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offense. The Church attaches the canonical penalty of excommunication to this crime against human life. "A URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2272.htm |
96% |
| 3: | CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2322 (290 bytes ) preview document matches 2 From its conception, the child has the right to life. Direct abortion, that is, abortion willed as an end or as a means, is a "criminal" practice (GS 27 § 3), URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2322.htm |
96% |
| 4: | CCC Search Result - Paragraph # 2274 (554 bytes ) preview document matches gravely opposed to the moral law when this is done with the thought of possibly inducing an abortion, depending upon the results: a diagnosis must not be the equivalent URL: http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/para/2274.htm |
Graphic illustrations warning!!
Life pings
Love - bad
Abortion - Good
Just so I get that straight...
Call me a caveman.
Thank you, oh high and mighty organ of the commie UM School of Journalism, for telling us that most religions favor abortion. Well then, don’t mind me telling you that we are not most religions. We are the one true religion and will fight the scourge of abortion until our last breath! So put that in your sacred womb vacuum and suck on it!
I love it when truly wicked people tell me my religion is wrong. Few things are more affirming of my Faith.
A primitive pro-life faith versus a secular human-sacrificing barbarism. Hmmmm...which one should I go with here?
>> “the idea such tissue is a person is an issue of Catholic superstition and not biological fact”
A person is defined to be a living human being. Maybe the bozo can inform us exactly at which point the fetal tissue transforms into a human.
This is nothing but Catholic bashing and the fool should test his courage on other religions that will not tolerate his aggression.
John Higdon is not listed on the current Faculty directory for the University of Missouri Medical School, Department of Psychology: http://www.umcpsychiatry.com/facultyphone.php
I suppose he has moved on. A search of the Main University of Missouri Faculty directory likewise yielded no matching name either.
As information...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.