"I could never have an abortion myself but who am I to tell you that you can't or that it's wrong."

Well, how about this then?

Some Christian Science sects firmly believe that ANY medical intervention is a affront to their religion. They would rather die of a simply treatable disease rather than taking a small pill. While I find that behavior abhorrant and "darwinesque", it's their damn right to do it. Just as it's their right to unload a 45 into their brainpan or drink the magic flavored Kool-Aid to hop on Hale-Bopp to see Zenu or whatever else.

Abortion is "mostly" a religious debate. It's the debate over when life begins and who has the right to end it. Forcing someone to carry a pregnancy to term it somewhere along the lines (IMHO) of forced organ donation.

Abortion is no more a religious debate than any other political issue. I find that people who insist that it's primarily religious seem to do so mostly so they can dismiss the arguments they disagree with.

But to disagree with my wife: when soldiers came home from Vietnam, they were many times spit on, called baby murderers, fascists, racists, sometimes even physically attacked.

They didn't deserve that.

"Support the troops" is, in my view, a simple way of saying that you don't hate the people doing the fighting. I'm just fine with that.

Dearest Hubby

No the Vietnam Vets didn't deserve the treatment that they got BUT it was at least honest.

I feel that if you are adamantly ANTI-WAR because you think killing anyone is WRONG than it SEEMS hypocritical to use the addendum "I support the troops".

No human being really likes war. Most of us grownups realize, however, that war is sometimes necessary. To support the war is in essence supporting the troops. Being ANTI-WAR is at its root to NOT support the troops and their actions.

Many people were not in favor of war and those are the ones that say 'well since we're there we are there to win' - and they support the troops.

I'm rambling...

Not wanting war is not the same as being ANTI-WAR.

Abortion is "mostly" a religious debate. It's the debate over when life begins and who has the right to end it.

Nope. You are changing the subject. My point is about being a hypocrite.

How about this then:

What if you saw someone beating their child with a bat? Would you say - Hey that is wrong and call the cops. Or... Gosh, I would never beat a child like that but who am I to tell you that you can't or that it's wrong.

Baby, most of our laws are based in some way on religious values and morality.

You are either okay with something or you are not.
Having your cake and eating it too - makes you a HYPOCRITE.

It's okay to be one. Just have the BALLS to admit it! As a parent, I am one on occasion too.

Forcing someone to carry a pregnancy to term it somewhere along the lines (IMHO) of forced organ donation.

NOT. I think at least people should be held accountable for their behavior. There are at least a dozen ways to prevent pregnancy - the easiest is to keep your panties on. People need to be more responsible. That's it.

I find abortion to be an intolerable method of birth control. I don't care if you agree with me or not but at least I am true to myself. I find it tolerable in extreme circumstances only. Not because I am some Christian extremist either. That is just where my heart and brain feel comfortable.

It's the moral equivalency, post-modernist, don't judge, pc crap that we would never teach our children, yet, mostly, we all put up with it at the office and other places. I'm against it. To me, abortion is murder, and I'll always say just that. You don't have to agree with me, and you can say as much. But, I'll still say what I think.

I agree with Rosemary (incidentally, happy birthday!). It seems like it got all backwards because of the actions of the folks in the late sixties. I think that the troops that the pacifistic parts of the left should have publicly supported were the ones that were drafted, not the ones in an all-volunteer force.

I think you will find that most people said that * this * war was wrong, but we will support the troops, that is completely different then saying that all war is wrong but I support the troops. I think you would be hard pressed to find people who objected to "all war" yet claimed to support the troops.

Now if your saying that it is not possible to be against a particular war, but once the shooting starts you support the effort to do whatever it takes to keep the troops as safe as can reasonably expected in a war, and do what ever it take to get them back home (which one would presume involves winning quickly and decisively) then I would disagree with you.

but that's just me.

Boy, go out to dinner with the wife and kids and see what happens!

#1. I support this war and our troops 100%, that I'm not debating. Don't believe it, check out my blog. :-)

#2. Rosemary brought up the point about abortion, calling people who personally find abortion wrong but are willing to fight to keep it legalized "hypocrites".

That being said, into the abyss we go... Please keep you seatbacks in their upright position.

Abortion is one of those behaviors/actions that you will find most people find disgusting and repugnant. I don't know how many times I confront someone about it saying "What are you doing about the problem?".

OK, it's play time. Let's make abortion 100% illegal. Any girl who is raped or finds out that carrying a child to term is most likely fatal is out of luck. What do you say to those families? "Sorry, maybe you should be more careful next time?" If that was my daughter, we'd be on the first plane out of the country to get it done.

Oh wait, what if we don't have the money to leave the country to get it done. Oops. Well, just go down and grab a brochure from the Batesville Casket Company or the DCFS office on how to raise a child you are going to regret the rest of your life. Everything will work out just fine. It's what "insert deity/non-deity name here" wanted for you.

OK, that was a bit far fetched. But seriously, do you want to tell that family "Sorry, but it's illegal because we think God said not to do it?"

So, now we get back to the point "if you're stupid enough to do it, you have to take repsonsibility". Well, being a parent of three adopted kids who's previous "biological parents" tales are the stuff of "Made-for-TV" movies, I tend to disagree with the idea that people "grow up" all of a sudden when they have a kid. Maybe people who have a support system in place to help nurture both kids (the mother and the child) can pull it off. But it has been my experience and the experience of my wife as well that this isn't the case. There are literally thousands of children rotting away in institutions because by some miracle of God, they were removed from the abuse they sustained in their biological homes. Many, many, MANY more are beaten and killed each year. How about the Duct Taping Mother in PA, or the parents who beheaded their kids.

I guess I'm now at the point of asking what are YOU doing about preventing abortions. What are you doing besides praying the Rosary outside the clinics or harassing doctors? Are you going down to the orphanages to see these abused kids who have so many problems that they will NEVER know what a real family is because they are more dangerous than Dahmer.

I know I'm WAY OT one this one, but I really do believe that there are people who are opposed to this war and want no one to get hurt. Those people are usually pretty immature and think the world could just solve it's problems if we would just sit down in Starbucks to a triple mocha latte. Just make sure the North Koreans don't set the table up. ;-)

Once again I repeat: the notion that opposition to abortion is based on religion is simple intellectual dishonesty. Yes, some such opposition is based in religion, just as some people's opposition to Jim Crow was based on religion. What, in the end, does that matter? You either think something in there is alive and has rights or you do not.

As a pro-choice person I am very, very, very tired of the people on my side of this issue who use shallow arguments like that. And saying it's about religion is a shallow argument. People based their opposition to rape on their religion too; does that make their opposition to rape wrong?

I have a unique perspective on this, since pro-life advocates run in my family. Most of them are women, and none ultimately base that position on religion. One of them gave a child up for adoption because she couldn't support it. I've also been very close with a number of adopted children.

Therefore, I'm rather impervious to, and impatient with, snotty people on my side of the abortion debate who imply that this is all about oppression of women, or imposing religious views, or who are incapable of thinking of the difficulties a pregnant woman faces.

Furthermore, I know a lot about the adoption industry. Guess what? There are tons more people wanting to adopt than there are kids available. It's so acute, in fact, that people will spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars just to ship in kids from overseas to adopt. Which is all well and good, but it makes arguments about "what will we do with all these unwanted children?" completely vapid and shallow. Such children do not exist.

If you think the unborn either isn't human, or is human but has no rights, or that the woman's rights always trump the child's--even if she's 9 months pregant, even if giving birth would be no more difficult than an abortion, even if she had plenty of alternatives sooner--then, fine, that's what you think. But most people, including most women by the way, think that's extreme and don't support that position. Just like most sane people.

As a pro-choicer what I refuse to respect is cheap arguments about this. And I refuse to treat people who disagree with me with the kind of disrespect that pro-choicers so often treat the other side with.

Being the son of a pro-life woman, and married to a pro-life woman, will do that to you I guess.

I think the original point, for which abortion was used as an example, was that it is somehow hypocritical to say that other people have a right to think and do things that one might not think or do, oneself. The problem with using abortion as an example here is that we start leaping to various religion and morality questions. So let's use a different example: is it hypocritical to say, "I'd never eat lobster, but I don't mind if you do..."? Some people find abortion kind of repugnant; some people find dropping live creatures into boiling water repugnant. I don't think it's morally wrong to eat a lobster, I just find the concept kind of unappealing for me personally. That doesn't make me a hypocrite.

The problem with the abortion example is that people seem to assume that if one is against abortion, it MUST be for religious or moral reasons, and that if you 'truly' believe in your religious or moral convictions, you are a hypocrite if you don't stand up and insist that those religious and moral convictions should be applied to everyone. I think abortion can be unappealing for quite personal reasons that are not applicable to all and sundry; and I think that we have to be careful when we start calling people 'hypocrites' when all they are doing is respecting other people's right to make up their own minds.

It's a slippery slope.

Sarah

Brian:

I guess I'm now at the point of asking what are YOU doing about preventing abortions. What are you doing besides praying the Rosary outside the clinics or harassing doctors? Are you going down to the orphanages to see these abused kids who have so many problems that they will NEVER know what a real family is because they are more dangerous than Dahmer.

I'm not an activist. I would never have an abortion. I think that using abortion as a method of birth control is repugnant. I thought that I was pretty clear.

I don't go harassing people outside clinics and all that. Just like I don't follow gangbangers with guns preaching love and murder is wrong. I won't commit murder, steal, assault I think it's wrong and I think it's wrong if you do too- but preventing those crimes is the job of the Police and Government NOT me.

Orphanages? Nice touch. I didn't get those dumbasses pregnant so that isn't my job either.
I am perfectly willing to help the poor welfare woman get sterilized or Norplant to prevent pregnancy if she is too weak to stop all that fucking.

Don't even go there about rape and shit. I don't think that abortion should be illegal. There are legitimate reasons for it and none of those reasons become necessary beyond 12 WEEKS.

All I'm saying is that if you think something is wrong - for moral or religious reasons than it is wrong for everyone you can't pick and choose. So people should stop being such a pussy and admit it.

Sarah:

Abortion was used for precisely the reason that you think I was wrong to use it. War opposition is a moral opposition so is abortion. Eating shellfish is a preference. In China they drop LIVE cats in deep fryers because it's easier to skin them for cooking. I find that sick but humans still trump animals. So that is not a fair comparison. Nobody is opposing WAR because of the Iraqi wildlife...

I was drawing an inference for a reason. I have never heard of anyone being personally against abortion that didn't have some internal right/wrong struggle going on.

Like killing, beating children, and infanticde. We either believe these things to be right or wrong - it's not a preference - if it were they wouldn't be illegal. Somebody woke up one day and said "That crap is wrong - it should be illegal" and it is. To say those things are wrong - I would never do that but you can - is hypocritical. I'm a hypocrite - I admit it. If someone is raped - I believe that poor creature should be given an abortion on the spot - do I believe the "baby" is innocent? - yes but I also believe that the poor victim should not have to be held accountable for something done against her will.

Rick:

WE are in agreement. I was mostly referring to the "Hollywood" crowd , Dixie Chicks and Michael Moore types that oppose all war because they say killing is wrong but still maintain that "they" support the troops. Hard to support the troops when calling their commander-in-chief Hitler, eh?

Well said Sarah, glad you could do it bettter than I could!

Dean, the children I'm talking about aren't going to be found in any adoption agency. The ones I'm talking about are the ones that are being placed through your local DCFS office. The hard to place kids. Those are the ones that I am talking about. These are the kids that NO ONE wants. My two daughters were through six placements before they landed here. My son has been through five adoptive placements. Sure they are difficult, but it's 100% worth it in the end.

Bottom line, if you are just against abortion and not for helping out parents in need, then are the kids really better off in the end?

"All I'm saying is that if you think something is wrong - for moral or religious reasons than it is wrong for everyone you can't pick and choose. So people should stop being such a pussy and admit it."

Ahh yes, my views of the world are definitely more correct than yours. Even though you might know more about a subject than I do, I'm always going to be right no matter what happens.

Rosemary, why are you so willing to fight to make something illegal and then not deal with the consequences of those decisions? If you want to stop abortions, then you better be ready to crack out the checkbook to start fully funding the DCFS offices. Or are you just going to stand there and say "Shame Shame" to the bad parents out there and ignore the kids?

Dean, might want to start a new thread on this. :-)

Brian:

Rosemary, why are you so willing to fight to make something illegal and then not deal with the consequences of those decisions? If you want to stop abortions, then you better be ready to crack out the checkbook to start fully funding the DCFS offices. Or are you just going to stand there and say "Shame Shame" to the bad parents out there and ignore the kids?

Why are so willing to clearly ignore what I have said. I DO NOT think that abortion should be illegal. I've already said that- more than once. Point of fact - abortion has been legal for 30 years now and all the problems you are talking about STILL EXIST. Bad parents, sad beaten children. Abortion did not stop any of that - did it.

My point is about being hypocritical - that's it. You either get what I am saying or you don't.

I suggest you re-read what I have said
s-l-o-w-l-y.
(heavy sarcasm)

And, yes I do say shame to all the bad parents. It's a shame we can't abort bad parents. They still exist - however, regardless of the law.

I am unashamedly pro-life. But the problem with the abortion debate is that the "debate" was cut short by the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The court declared that women were the ONLY party effected by abortion; therefore abortion was a women's rights issue. This is patently absurd on its face.

Even if you believe the child in the womb is a lifeless glob of tissue, there is at least one other person - the father - who is affected by the decision to have an abortion.

The women's rights people declare that 15 minutes of irresponsible behaviour by a women should not require her to carry a parasitic embryo to term, and spend the next 20+ years paying for that mistake. By that method of reasoning, how is it permissable to have a man be responsible for the 15 minutes of irresponsible behaviour if a women "chooses" to keep the baby?

If it is a woman's sole right to choose, how is it just to require the impregnating male to be held hostage to the whims of that woman. If he does not want the child, if he does not want to pay child support for 18 years, if he does not wish to engage in a long-term relationship with the woman in question, shouldn't he also have the "right to choose?" If he chooses to disavow a child the woman chooses to keep, shouldn't she be required to bear the full responsibility of that "choice?"

If a woman has the sole right to choose, shouldn't she bear 100% of the responsiblity for that choice? Surely you cannot argue that today's modern woman is so emotionally unstable that men just naturally overwhelm them and spread their seed at will. I don't know any such pathetic powerless women.

*************************

No self-respecting woman's rights advocate would agree with the above argument. While a woman has a right to choose, men are currently at the mercy of that choice. If they prefer to become a father, their brief coitus partner can invalidate their preference by arbitrarily terminating the pregnancy. If they prefer to be free to spread their seed without regard to consequences, the law will hold them financially accountable for a woman's choice to keep her child. They cannot choose to put the child up for adoption. They cannot renounce their parental rights and escape the arbitrary decision by the woman to keep the baby.

HOW IS THIS JUST? HOW IS THIS FAIR?

The only reasonable interpretation is that abortion is not ONLY about a woman's right to choose. It is about much more. It should be about the rights of three people, not just one.

I do not agree with those in the pro-life camp who say that the only person whose rights should be considered is the child. The woman does have rights. So does the potential father.

The tragedy of the Roe v. Wade decision is that it co-opted reasonable debate. While I lean very strongly towards giving preeminence to the rights of the unborn child, I am willing to acknowledge the legitimate concerns of the mother and the father.

I do not advocate letting the father off the hook for spawning a child. But you cannot honestly argue for stringent child support laws and argue for the pro-choice position at the same time. These arguments are non-campatible. If a father can and is held responsible for his 15 minutes of extasy, then the mother can be held to the same standard.

Yes, women have to carry the baby within their body and men don't. But calling that unfair is like cursing the earth for revolving. It is nature. Live with it. That is why women have always bourne a greater responsibility for consensual sexual activity.

It is patently obvious to anyone with a shred of intelligence that women bear the brunt of child bearing and child rearing responsibility. The historically recent advent of birth control methods and technology have not changed that fact.

In fact, the ability of women to be as free with sexual activity as men have been is simply an illusion. To anyone involved in a long-term relationship, it goes without saying that women hold the reins of power sexually. They are less obsessed with it then men. Many times, they can take it or leave it. Just ask any woman. They "need" emotional attachment to validate sex. Even within committed relationships, many times men just want to get off.

With sex having a greater impact on women both physically and emotionally, it should be obvious that women have a vested interest in obtaining some level of commitment from the man she mates with. The current level of mis-education of women is directly related to the agenda of the pro-choice movement.

And the only way the law can justify imposing that responsibility on the man involved is to acknowledge the existence of the third party involved - the child. Only the inevitability of copulation leading to procreation justifies allowing women to legally attach responsibility to the man for a mutual choice to engage in sex.

And by acknowledging the existence of the child, the law must consider the rights of that child. This is not a religious argument. It is a "natural" argument.

A cursory examination of nature will lead to the conclusion that the number one goal of nature is its own continued existence. It places in the male the almost uncontrollable urge to fuck. It places in the female the desire for security to provide a safe environment to care for the inevitable result of that urge. It requires the two to negotiate the terms of agreement before before the male can satisfy his seemingly irrational, but natural need to ejaculate.

Recent science has thrown nature a curve by allowing artificially induced birth control. But the underlying natural proclivities of men and women have not been changed by that science.

But science has also invalidated the claims of those who argue that the child in the womb is just lifeless tissue. The "trimester" division is just an arbitrary mathematical coincidence of 3 being the mathematical cubed root of the average 9 month human gestation cycle. The trimester division has no basis in science.

So my conclusion is that reasonable people need to begin to honestly debate the competing rights of all the parties involved. Besides the mother, the father, and the child, society at large also has a vested interest in the situation.

The law has always been about reconciling the sometimes complimentary and often competing interest of different parties. It is far past time for open honest debate about this issue.

YEAH!

Scott: you're right that the father should have a way to cut his responsibility for the child, since the mother has a way to cut hers. However, abortion is not a good answer to that problem.

I support the availabilty of abortion because there is no other way for a woman to get out of bearing the child to term. I feel uncomfortable with women taking that option, but I think it should be open, and I don't think the woman should have to prove to anyone else that the she should be allowed to choose it.

But for a woman to have an abortion because a man doesn't want to deal with her being pregnant is wrong. Just as for her to have to carry the child to term because a man wants the child is wrong.

It sucks that the man can't take over for her, or that some machine can't. But until we find a way around the 9 month gestation period, abortion has to remain the mothers choice.

Rosemary: Am I correct in understanding that your position on this is that saying:
"Abortion would be wrong for me, but may not be wrong for you"
is hypocritical. But that:
"I think abortion is wrong, but I think it would be more wrong for me to forbid you to do it"
would not be?

"Abortion would be wrong for me, but may not be wrong for you"
is hypocritical. But that:
"I think abortion is wrong, but I think it would be more wrong for me to forbid you to do it"
would not be?

Not exactly.

I think it is hypocritical to say that something is wrong but it's okay for you... if it's wrong then it's wrong.

I am not in a position to forbid anyone from an abortion nor would I want to be.

BUT:

I think it would be more wrong for the government to forbid a person unilaterally from an abortion. Too many reasons exist for the need to an abortion. But I think that there need to be more reason for an abortion than as birth control because that is a sick reason. "Health" of the mother is too loosely translated for some of those post-first trimester abortions. That is my cutoff. I personally think that beyond 12 weeks if the woman's life isn't on the line - that should just be BAM illegal.

Michael,

I think you misunderstood my argument. The point of my argument above was to show the absurdity of the current pro-choice argument that abortion is ONLY about the woman involved.

I am NOT advocating for a man to also have the option to avoid responsibility. I am flatly stating that sex is not just sex (no matter how much we want it to be.) It has potential consequences. And you must be prepared to bear the responsibility of those consequences.

That should apply equally to the man and the woman, and throwing away human life with the trash is plain unnacceptable. Life, while not priceless, is very precious. We make trade offs every day between safety and freedom, medical investment and return. So saying an unborn child's life is priceless is stupid. But you better have a DAMN GOOD REASON to terminate that life. A HELLUVA lot better reason than personal inconvenience.

Michael,

I think you misunderstood my argument. The point of my argument above was to show the absurdity of the current pro-choice argument that abortion is ONLY about the woman involved.

I am NOT advocating for a man to also have the option to avoid responsibility. I am flatly stating that sex is not just sex (no matter how much we want it to be.) It has potential consequences. And you must be prepared to bear the responsibility of those consequences.

That should apply equally to the man and the woman, and throwing away human life with the trash is plain unnacceptable. Life, while not priceless, is very precious. We make trade offs every day between safety and freedom, medical investment and return. So saying an unborn child's life is priceless is stupid. But you better have a DAMN GOOD REASON to terminate that life. A HELLUVA lot better reason than personal inconvenience.

"In fact, the ability of women to be as free with sexual activity as men have been is simply an illusion. To anyone involved in a long-term relationship, it goes without saying that women hold the reins of power sexually. They are less obsessed with it then men. Many times, they can take it or leave it. Just ask any woman. They "need" emotional attachment to validate sex. Even within committed relationships, many times men just want to get off." Scott Harris

---well that may be true in alot of cases, but it certainly isnt true for all women. In fact, i cant say i know many women who need emotional attachment to validate sex. And if they exist, i suggest that their need is largely derived from cultural factors rather than inherent biological factors. After all, sex for women is very much physical pleasure and sexual release...it may just be that in many cases a women does not get aroused as quickly or easily as a man, and therefore can be more discerning.