Posted on 06/13/2002 6:09:23 PM PDT by ATOMIC_PUNK
Perhaps italicizing the quoted text would be better. All of the text you posted says 'font color="black"'. Oh well...
By your own admission, for every 1 (one) woman that died or was maimed when abortions were illegal, thousands of babies are being murdered. For this reason and others, women and men are fighting for the right of babies to live.
I suspect a much better rebuttal, if you can find the stats, is that the number of abortions since Roe v. Wade has increased so much that even though they pose less risk per incident to women than they used to pre Roe, the total number of women are seriously harmed or killed in abortions today than pre Roe. I don't have the stats, so my 'rebuttal' may be wrong, but if the stats support it PP's argument is shredded.
People strongly desiring children are on lengthy waiting lists for the chance to adopt infants. In fact, adoptive parents pay tens of thousands of dollars in order to adopt, as well as submitting to various screening procedures.
Unfortunately, some adoption agencies refuse to place minority babies with white families, even when there is a queue of such babies awaiting placement and a queue of families seeking to adopt. This policy is a win-win-win situation for liberals:
When did Congress get jurisdiction over homicide? Homicide falls under state jurisdiction, and different states have different laws regarding when it is permissible (e.g. in Texas, it is legal to shoot someone to prevent criminal mischief against one's property during the night). I see no reason why states should not have authority on this issue. IMHO, the proper course of action is to either (1) pass a constitutional amendment to reverse Roe v. Wade and/or give Congress some type of authority over abortion. The former would probably get the required 38 states much more easily than the latter; (2) somehow convince the Court that Roe v. Wade, especially current "interpreations", unconstitutionally restrict state authority [Roe v. Wade supposedly allows broad state restrictions on "third-trimester" abortions, but such restrictions get struck down in court.]
mothers choice=Legal
Seems pretty clear to me
Let's do it slower this time. The debate going on here is weather abortion should be legal or illegal. We are not trying to see if someones stand is legal or not. So what is your argument for why abortion should be legal? Thanks.
I believe it is a womans (THE woman in this case) choice to control her own body, life and future w/out intervention from those that feel compelled to control it for her.
Right or wrong, it's the law, should it be legal? I say YES!
And yes.....it is all about me (unless I choose to make it otherwise), this again is my choice to make, no one elses and as long as I don't have a problen with that others don't matter. I can live with my decisions, my actions, my choices, others don't have to.
if experts in the field(s) can't agree, how would a woman ill of choice enough to become unwantedly pregnant in the first place be able to make a better decision on issues of religion, philosophy, science and medicine?
using "accident" and "rape" in the same sentence is assinine. "accident" is code for "bad decision". "rape" is forced upon someone. vastly different. "accident" is what happens 99% of the time. "rape" is what happens 1% of the time. there's NO confusing the two.
The hard truth is and remains that single people of child bearing age will always be overwhelmingly pro choice because of pure self interest. And as appears the case the ultimate goal of pro-lifers is really to repeal the Sexual Revolution by making sex risky. There is no question that were abortion to be outlawed the next step for the pro life movement would be to restrict or eliminate access to contraception. That is not something that single people of child bearing age will ever allow to happen and it dovetails exactly with the consistent pattern of people nowadays marrying later and later.
The hard truth is, America dislikes abortion but accepts that "sometimes it is the best thing in a bad situation". The hard truth is, the Bible-thumping side screaming "slut", "harlot" will never be able to outmatch the MTV side.
what a crock. they're trying to make you think by reading this, that 40% of 14 year old girls will become pregnant. read it again. they're trying to give you a decieved impression. very few 14 year old girls would become pregnant, though now perhaps 40% of all women become pregnant before they are 20, but this presumably includes married women who choose to have babies.
they could just as easily say "40% of 9 year old girls will become pregnant before they are 20".
the tone of this government supported Planned Parenthood literature is VERY deceiving (like mentioning and equalizing "accidents or rape" in an earlier section of their brochure).
Gay rights activists are anxiously awaiting the day when science will announce the identification of a "gay" gene. This will bolster their argument that being gay is not a choice but a natural, unavoidable predisposition rather than a lifestyle choice and therefore worthy of special protective rights against discrimination.
Now, what if this 'proof" is discovered? Expectant mothers will be able to determine in utero if their newborn will be gay or sttraight. How many women in this society will "choose" not to have a gay child? How many will abort and try again? It is, after all, in this society their choice alone.
What will the left do when abortion to avoid giving birth to a gay child starts? Whose "rights" will they protect? The woman's? The gay foetus'?
If they, driven by the gay elements in their ranks, claim that to abort a foetus based solely on the gay gene issue is disrimination then they will be forced into the position that abortion is not always the woman's choice. If they choose this position then their whole argument collapses. If they chose to support the woman's choice position in all cases then there will be a rift within their ranks, gays on one side abortion rights activists on the other. Lose/Lose for them.
The other possibility, one which allows them to avoid the issue entirely is to declare that gayness is not genetic. BUT, this then leaves only the lifestyle choice option as a reason for homosexuality. If the left takes this position then they cannot justify special rights against discrimination toward gays in housing, workplace, etc. without saying that discrimination against any chosen lifestyle (alcoholism, drug use, pornography, etc) in the workplace and housing area is also to be combatted by laws. Will they really push for laws protecting the rights of your neighborhood pornographer? Will employers be forced to accept falling down drunks and junkies or face discrimination suits? Another lose/lose for our friends on the left.
I can't wait.
wrong. it's an issue that people on the pro-life side feel passionately about. don't confuse republicans with democrats, dems are actually more likely to exploit emotional issues for political gain (think: mediscare, social security scare, abortion scare, etc.)
"The hard truth is, America dislikes abortion but accepts that "sometimes it is the best thing in a bad situation".
most americans do NOT favor abortion, except when a woman has been raped, incest is involved or the mother's life is in danger. you are no longer in the majority.
"And as appears the case the ultimate goal of pro-lifers is really to repeal the Sexual Revolution by making sex risky."
wrong again. what you're saying in other words is "we want to outlaw murder so we can outlaw sex, because sex is really the culprit". that's absurd. although prolife people generally may disfavor sex outside of marriage, they are interested in outlawing the killing of babies, not outlawing premarital sex, though many of them are against premarital sex for obvious reasons.
you may not like this (these damn stubborn facts) but most americans period don't want unessecary abortions, not just the "bible-thumping" crowd. anyway the "bible-thumping" crowd i hang with is a very sexual crowd, within the context of marriage of course. you should hear some of the sex (within marriage of course) advocacy at my church.
"There is no question that were abortion to be outlawed the next step for the pro life movement would be to restrict or eliminate access to contraception."
what are you basing this "unquestionable assumption" on? there is no slippery slope here. the "evil of contraception" (laugh, what a joke) isn't nearly as motivating as killing babies.
"The hard truth is, the Bible-thumping side creaming "slut", "harlot" will never be able to outmatch the MTV side."
your descriptions of each side, in this sentence, want for for some equality of negative phrasing.
now go clean the dirty sausage off your teeth and get back to work.
someday perhaps it won't be legal: "stealing=Illegal | slavery=Legal"
but anyway...
"what point am I missing? Not the one where my opinion doesn't matter and is wrong and your opinion does matter and is right? Thought So!"
well your opinion does matter and i'm not saying your opinion is wrong, i'm saying that it supports murder. whether or not you feel supporting murder is a morally "wrong view" is kind of up to you, though again, at some point murder as a conceptionchoice might be illegal.
"You know, I've had these discussions with anti-abortionists before and w/out exception they all are willing to take away the mothers choice, yet not one is willing to personally supply the alternative, why is that?"
i don't really know who or what are you talking about. there are lots of alternatives to unwanted pregnancy, the most obvious being not becoming unwantedly pregnant. if you're asking "would YOU carry my baby?" well i'd have to answer "no" because i'm not the one who became pregnant. if you're asking me if i'd ADOPT your child, my answer might be "yes".
so i guess i don't understand what you're talking about when you say "Why not enforce your commitment by offering to be the alternative yourself?" or how you could with a straight face ask me to "take responsibility" for something you've done, as though you're trying to say "i made a poor decision, live with it asshole, or fix it yourself, ha ha."
"Bottom line is, the law says I'm right and your wrong! good-night!"
"Bottom line is, slavery is legal, i'm right and you're wrong. good-night!"
better not sleep too long, 'cause the times they are a changin'
People whose interests are directly at stake will fight harder than people whose interests aren't. I noticed that the one point you did not contest is that single people of fertile age (of whom there are more and more all the time as people marry later and later) are and always will be overwhelmingly pro choice out of pure socioeconomic self interest. And They are the ones with the most at stake in this issue. So the ranks of pro-choice people are always being constantly replenished.
It is not recognizing the ambiguity of the public response where you fail. The public is profoundly uncomfortable with abortion but in most cases wants that socioeconomic escape hatch to be there. What they want for society as a whole is not what they would want for their own daughter.
And as for 'slut', just scroll up a few responses.
Oooh, good response!
by Sarah E. Hinlicky
For a long time it baffled me. To be specific, it baffled me from the first time I heard what exactly an abortion is — I must have been 10 or 11 years old — till last week. I could never ever, for the life of me, no matter how hard I stretched my imagination or suspended my moral judgment, understand why anyone would want to be pro-choice. I could get the "pro-life-for-me-but-not-anyone-else" point of view, I could conceive (ha!) of the "government-shouldn’t-legislate-morality" perspective, I could even sympathize with the "our-country-isn’t-there-yet" argument. But I just couldn’t figure out why anyone in her right mind would say that abortion is a right that all women should, must, and ought to have in order to be truly free in a just and democratic society, and thus all other rights should bow before it. What does the dismembering of fetuses (if you insist on calling them that) have to do with justice and democracy? And so it was that I spent lo these many years of my life assuming that pro-choice activists either have some sort of inexplicable blood lust, or live in perpetual denial of reality.
But this past week I finally got it. I don’t know how they managed to communicate their message so poorly all along that it took me nearly a decade and a half. This is it: when it comes right down to it, pro-choice activists are not talking about fetuses at all. They’re talking about fear. They fear a future in which men control the bodies, lives and futures of women. And that’s why we’ve been talking past each other all this time.
I first began to see the light (so to speak) about two months ago, talking to my old friend Catherine. Catherine does not hesitate to express her opinions or launch the conversation into dangerous topics. We started with capital punishment, and from there it was a short leap to her fears for women during the new presidential regime. Choice will be taken away, she said, and you know what follows from that. Men impregnating women, keeping them home, beating them up, destroying their career chances, abandoning the infants, children starving on the streets, and the final re-institution of the 1950s. I was, needless to say, somewhat stunned by the course of her logic. You think we’ll get a better world by killing the children? I said. You think anyone will care to look for solutions to economic and domestic problems when they can just knock off the main players in the drama?
Around and around the debate went. It expanded and contracted and went nowhere. At least we trusted each other to say what we really thought, no small accomplishment in the discussion of this particular issue, but by the end we had to admit that we’d reached a standstill and we might as well quit. (Ironically enough, afterwards Catherine went on to say that she thought our society was hostile to rounded female bodies because it fears fertility in women, and isn’t that atrocious?)
The conversation percolated quietly in my brain until this past Thursday, when I went to a public debate on abortion policy over at Princeton University. The main draw: Peter Singer, notorious Australian "bioethicist" who is famous for advocating such things as bestiality and infanticide (the former only if it is mutually pleasurable, the latter presumably not). His arguments were surprisingly unpersuasive, for they relied upon vegetarianism (?!). The really interesting speaker, in fact, was a student at the university, joining her illustrious colleague on the pro-choice panel. She spoke very fast and very passionately, and as far as I could tell she only contradicted herself once. But there was this phrase that she kept repeating: "an incubator of the state." It was her tag line, her emotional hot button, and every time she said it you couldn’t help but have a little thrill of 1984-ish horror run up and down your spine. Bearing babies for Uncle Sam? Kitchen, children and church, like Hitler used to say? My uterus a public utility? What could be more grotesquely offensive to my sensibilities — all of them, as a woman, as a Christian, as an American, as a modern (or even postmodern) — than that? I’m not an incubator of the state, no way.
It took a little while to snap out of the haze she had cast over the crowd. Pro-lifers are certainly not advocating incubation for the state; the phrase misses our point entirely. In the meanwhile, though, I had missed hers too. It took some reflection to get it. She really feared, like Catherine, that some nameless faceless bureaucrats out there (probably men) had it in for her, wanted to punish her for being a woman, being fertile, being (worst of all) sexually active outside of chaste Christian marriage. She thought that that is what the pro-life side is all about, and she saw her life and future and career and hopes and dreams all threatened. For her, it’s not about life, or babies, or responsibility, or sacrifice. It’s all about control. Who’s going to control my body, me or the nameless faceless state? Well heck, I can hardly blame her for choosing herself over them. The question is, who’s got the better grasp on reality? What is this really all about? Is it about saving the lives of innocent babies, or is it about keeping adult women under control?
By sheer coincidence (God’s way of remaining anonymous, as the old French proverb goes), the very next day I stumbled across a novel in the library called The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, copyright 1986. It’s a movie now too, I guess, and I must have heard the name tossed about on the breeze, so I thought I should read it, ignoring the three 20-page papers I have due in less than a month. It’s a story of a theocracy in not-so-far-distant America, renamed the Republic of Gilead, run by nasty men who take some stuff in Genesis as prescriptive rather than descriptive. Women are divided into their three (and only) functions: Wives, who look pretty and with some luck bear sons, Handmaids who bear sons (for Wives who can’t) but do nothing else, and Marthas who cook and clean. They lead regimented lives, every step and bite and word under scrutiny, but men come and go as they please. Women who perform all three functions, for poorer men, are disdainfully called Econowives. All marriages are arranged and pleasurable sex is permitted only with prostitutes (called Jezebels, of course). Procreating is the only goal in life for women. Love is not a factor. Women who fail in their appointed duties are sent to clean up toxic waste in the Colonies; they only last a couple years, at most.
The moral of the story is not too hard to figure. Men must not control female sexuality, but they obviously want to. Abortion must stay legal. Love must stay free, marriage breakable. If not, we will have social totalitarianism upon us, and all the progress of the past 40 years will be swallowed up by another interminable reign of the uterus. It’s a well-told story, and properly terrifying. Imagine having my books, my school, my tank tops taken away! Imagine having my Bible turned into an instrument of torture! No, I don’t want that either.
But is that the threat?
It clicked, finally. When I as a pro-life woman am talking to another woman who is pro-choice, we are not talking about the same thing. I am talking about my horror that the most vulnerable humans in our country are being slaughtered at the rate of 4,400 a day because they can’t be paid for, because the boyfriend doesn’t want that, because social disapproval has overcome the mother, because fear is the number one motivating factor. But she is talking about her horror that her education might be ended, her rights revoked, her career squelched, all because she has chosen to have sex with a man and nature has taken its course, or worse yet she has been raped by a man and nature has taken its course, and someone out there had decided to punish her for violating their morality. We’re not talking about the same thing. No wonder we can’t understand each other. No wonder we can’t persuade each other.
As a matter of fact, though, she raises some good questions. Is the pro-life side always motivated purely out of love for the unborn child? You don’t need to go to the extreme of abortion clinic bombers to find exceptions to what should be the rule. Pro-lifers often have strong feelings about chastity and sexual responsibility. Is there a certain amount of satisfaction in the thought that these women are being disproved in their casual sexuality? Or that single irresponsible men are being brought to account for their own wanton behavior? Or that sex is manifestly not just about having a good time? Is there even a hint of that in there? I’ll tell you right now: that has to go. Not one of us is one hundred percent chaste. Single mothers are the heroes of our time for not taking the easy way out, and we ought to be telling them that. We ought not to be moralistically informing the world that sex has its consequences and they should’ve seen it coming. They’re smart enough to figure that out for themselves. And it shows very little love for people in situations of genuine personal distress.
But I have some questions for my pro-choice friend too. Who does she think is out to get her? Does she really imagine a conspiracy of control-freak middle-aged white upper-middle-class corporate men who want to turn her body into another profit-churning manufacturing plant? In this prosperous job market, are they really out for her career and her job power? Do they really see her as a machine whose main purpose is to produce babies? I think it’s fair to say that her enemies, in this society and at this time, are far more interested in her not producing babies — inconvenient, demanding, messy things that they are. The man most interested in her sexuality is the one who can profit from it without any cost to himself, and he’s the one who’ll keep her pigeonholed, as non-wife non-mother non-commitment, by his true commitment to abortion availability. The sad irony for my pro-choice friend is that the abortion regime is far more likely to produce men indifferent or hostile to women than one in which love, marriage and children — the package deal — is given the highest priority.
An honest assessment of sexual dynamics in this country is in order. It is bizarre that possibly 50 percent of marriages fail. It is bizarre that so many abortions are deemed necessary. It is bizarre that pregnancy has been logically disconnected from sex. It is bizarre that broken relationships are the standard experience of modern people. It is bizarre that commitment seems irrational. It is bizarre that is so hard for young folks to fall in love, promise themselves to each other, get married and stick it out. You’ve got to wonder about a society when the most natural thing in the world has been turned into the most unnaturally difficult thing in the world.
(Un)fortunately, it’s also our only hope. Enmity has been there between men and women since the beginning of time and shows no signs of abating. There is only one place where a man and a woman can really come to terms with each other, without the games, without the hostility, without the pretense and without the clothes. That is in marriage, operated on trust, and formed in love. Falling in love is the only thing that softens otherwise calculating and manipulative creatures; staying in love, loving willfully and deliberately and permanently against all the odds, is the only way to keep the enmity at bay. This is how men stop seeing women as meat, objects, possessions, trinkets, subplots; this is how women stop distrusting, deceiving and wheedling for power that they physically don’t have. This is where equality happens, friends: married, vowed, naked before the Lord. It is also the only place where abortion is not necessary.
Think about it. Then choose wisely.
Thanks big'ol.
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.