Jivin J’s Life Links 2-16-09
by JivinJ
“We’re going to be doing something on that soon, I think. The president is considering that right now,” Obama adviser David Axelrod said on Fox News Sunday.
The 24-year-old says she would have stopped taking the tablets immediately and dealt with any pain cause by her illness another way if she had known she was carrying her “beautiful” son.
Instead she had to give birth to her him on a commode and he died in her arms just four minutes later.
About a week ago the Worle mum had been told it was too late for a straight-forward termination. So, on Friday she took a tablet to stop her baby’s heartbeat so she could deliver her dead child on Monday.
But the tablet did not work and Katie then had no choice but to deliver the 17-week-old foetus alive.
This is odd, when you think about it. If the fetus is simply a blob of tissue, what would be wrong with a lot of abortions? Of course, if these fetuses are really little human beings, then we could understand their worry.
In 2005, after a public outcry over the termination of a foetus with a cleft palate at 28 weeks, the Department of Health stopped publishing abortion statistics if fewer than 10 cases were carried out. Details of abortions on foetus with club feet, cleft lips and palates and webbed fingers and toes were no longer published.
The Information Commissioner has ordered the release of the figures, requested by the Pro-Life Alliance campaign group, but the DoH is resisting, claiming that the data could lead to women who have late abortions being identified.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Aborting a baby because it is not ‘perfect’ in the eyes of others is very wrong on so many levels.
I see the writing on the wall. Abortion will no longer be called abortion. It will be called “embryonic stem cell harvesting.” And anyone opposed to “embryonic stem cell harvesting” will be said to want to kill people and make people suffer because of all the cures that will come from embryonic stem cell research. Of course one would have to ignore that only adult stem cell research has yield any viable treatment. Over 50 last time I read a count. The only thing embryonic stem cells have yielded are tumors of uncontrolled growth. I believe this type of tumor is often referred to as malignant.
Since abortion is such a “good thing”, how can we get too much of a “good thing”?
I have a nephew that was born with a mild form of cleft lip (not as severe as many children) and he has had surgery to fix it and has some speech issues (which he receives / has received speech therapy for) but other than that, he’s perfect.
There’s an organization called Smile Train that helps with the costs of the surgery. The whole world is obsessed with the PERFECT child. No one is perfect! There was a couple who aborted two of their quadruplets because they were boys (and boys are more likely to be autistic). Its very sad and pathetic.
There is much speculation about a ‘fireball’ that streaked across the Texas sky on Sunday afternoon Feb 15. Some say it is remnants from two satellites that collided a few days earlier or a metor the size of a Texas Cadillac.
I believe it to be the US economy responding to the Obama/Democrat stimulus package.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_eJLcGPWTs
yor bro ken
If the fetus is simply a blob of tissue, what would be wrong with a lot of abortions?
It’s surgery, and no one likes to have surgery if they can prevent it. Duh.
Too bad the captain and crew were not on board as they deliberately drove it into the ground at full speed.
The big problem with that scenario is that most americans are unwilling or unwitting passengers on the identified flayling object.
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and oooooh how the mitey has fallen, some might say jumped or even pushed, into the abyss.
If haste makes waste, then look for more of your good money to follow their ill conceived and ill advised amateuish attempt at beuracratic paper pushing busy work.
There is plenty of shovel ready work in this package so pork laden that no observant jew or muslim would dare touch it. Kosher it is not.
Start shovelin you shiftless shills, the pig dung is about to hit the fan.
yor bro ken
Hey! I saw that fireball as I drove home from Target!
It looked like a roman candle, and that’s what I thought it was until I saw on the news that there were unidentified flaming objects falling on Texas!
If the reason why pro-fetal-executioners say that there are “too many abortions” is that abortion is surgery and surgery is expensive, unpleasant and time consuming, then why did Hillary Clinton call the “right to choose” a “sad, tragic choice”? Was she high?
No John, she was talking about “wanted” babies. Unwanted babies are nothing but blobs of cells.
:@{)
To pro-deathers unwanted babies are nothing but blobs of cells. Somehow wanting a baby makes the baby more human in a pro-deather’s mind.
The issue I have with anti-choicers is that they so often forget the woman when they talk about abortion. I am pro-choice and I want to reduce the number of abortions, because abortion is a major medical procedure that is painful, intrusive, and expensive for the woman (as is an unwanted pregnancy). The best result for the WOMAN is to not face an unwanted pregnancy in the first place. That’s why good sex ed and access to reliable contraception is essential.
As for Hillary Clinton’s characterization of abortion as a sad, tragic choice, I agree with Mr. Lewandowski that her position is pretty mushy. She is part of the mushy middle and has been criticized for it by a lot of pro-choicers. On the other hand, her statement accurately reflects the experience of many women who undergo abortion. While many experience mainly “relief,” others are more conflicted about it, and as a pro-choicer, I have no problem recognize the ambiguous emotions sometimes (but not always) experienced by the women involved.
I agree that abortion is like heart surgery. It is a good thing to have as an option, but I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
Prochoicer, you are mistaken in your belief that pro-lifers don’t care about the women. We care about them deeply, we just don’t believe they (or anyone else) has the right to kill their child.
If Hillary is the “mushy middle,” I’m terrified to see a hard-liner. She’s pushed through just about every piece of pro-abortion legislation that we saw during her time in office. She just happened to make the tactical mistake of admitting that abortion is something not so great with the now imfamous “safe, legal, and rare” bit.
Lauren,
You are right that Clinton’s policies aren’t mushy middle. It would have been more accurate for me to say her rhetoric panders to the mushy middle.
We so often forget women when we give them free ultrasounds, complete and accurate fetal development information, maternity clothes, baby supplies, formula, help them find a place to live, a job and refer for adoption.
The women that the pro-choice crowd wants to forget are the ones that regret their abortions and have been physically harmed by it.
But I think the woman’s interests often are erased or not considered in discussions of abortion. The lack of understanding as to why pro-choicers would want fewer abortions is a classic example of how pro-lifers forget there is a woman involved.
Prochoicers have never disputed the fact that some women regret their abortions. We just don’t think that is a reason to prohibit a procedure which many women manifestly do not regret.
What do you mean by your first sentence?
What about women that are physically harmed or killed by safe legal abortion? It remains pretty quiet on the PC side. Necessary evil and all that jazz.
Agreed. Do not prohibit a procedure that thousands of women and men regret. Prohibit it because it kills a human child.
Pro-choicer-
No one talks about wanting the removal of wisdom teeth to be a “safe, legal, and rare” accorance, even though the procedure causes significant pain and suffering, is expensive, and can result in PTSD.
We say, well this surgery is necessary to protect the future health and wellbeing of the person having the surgery so the benefits outweigh the risks.
We recognize the harm done to women because of abortion. We try to warn women of the dangers, while the pro-choice side, especially within the clinics themselves, pretend that abortion is completely harmless and will result in no ill to the woman. They then lie to her about the development of her child, opening her up for quite a shock and horror when she stumbles upon the truth about fetal development later in life.
Who really cares about the woman?
Lauren,
The “safe, legal, and rare” formulation is unlikely to be used with regard to other medical procedures, because there is no effort to make those procedures illegal. And many procedures (such as wisdom teeth removal) do not necessarily arise from preventable conditions.
Who really cares about the woman?
Those of us who advocate choice!
Pro-lifers, by definition, have an agenda by which the fetus’s interests trump the woman’s interests. I don’t doubt that some of you feel compassion for women facing unwanted pregnancies, but you generally don’t think her interests are worth as much as those of the fetus.
Bristol Palin: Abstinence isn’t working….
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/17/bristol-palin-abstinence/www
Pro-choicer says ” [pro-lifer’s]have an agenda by which the fetus’s interests trump the woman’s interests.”
Fetus’s interests= right to life.
What other rights can we claim to support if our country fails to recognize the basic right to life?
Hi PCer.
“Pro-lifers, by definition, have an agenda by which the fetus’s interests trump the woman’s interests. ”
Well, let’s phrase the question this way: who has more to lose? I agree that it is a conflict of interests, but there is no right more valuable than the right to life.
Harolds Crayon: Link isn’t working…
Yikes, my main purpose in commenting was to clarify the pro-choice position on “too many abortions.” But I will bite.
The right to life is not absolute. For example, though I am proud of my dad’s service in Viet Nam, the fact is that he was forced by his government to risk his life over there to serve interests that were deemed more important.
My right to hold on to even superfluous of my internal organs is considered more important than the right to life of those needing kidney transplants or bone marrow donations. Heck, even my right to choose how to dispose of organs I no longer need after my death, trumps the right of desperate patients who might need those organs!
PCer,
In an abortion, one directly kills an innocent human being as an ends or as a means. The right to life of an innocent is always an absolute. There is no other situation where you directly kill an innocent human being as a means or an end.
In the organ case, no one has a “right to an organ” so it does not work to say that you have a conflict of interests in that case like you do in an abortion.
PCer,
A parent isn’t obligated to give up organs for their child (or anyone) because this goes beyond the realm of expected care.
Parent lose various rights to their children when fulfilling the needs that can be attributed to this standard. For example, I lose my right to privacy when I have a child because I must allow him to live in my house to protect him from the elements. This is because protecting him is expected care. To not do so would be neglect.
During pregnancy, the only way to care for a child in such a way that it will not be neglected is to carry it within the womb of a woman. Just like I give up my right to privacy in order to house my child, I give up my right to complete bodily domain in order to house the fetus.
Not doing so would result in the death of my child, which is obviously neglecting it of expected care.
PC, I’m in your corner. I just don’t like being told that I shouldn’t have this choice because there’s such a high chance I’ll regret it. I find it insulting when someone assures me that I’ll feel a certain way so therefore I should carry the pregnancy to avoid feeling regret/emotional pain/etc. Web sites like Imnotsorry.com are full of people who felt nothing but relief after an abortion.
I’m just got accepted to grad school (yay!) to get certified in health education, because I think the most productive thing we can do is help people not get pregnant in the first place if they aren’t ready to be a parent, so I want to teach sex ed. Because as Bristol Palin said this morning, abstinence isn’t realistic to teach to teens.
Hmmm . . . I am pretty sure we are never going to see eye to eye on this one.
One problem both sides face in this argument is that pregnancy and abortion are unique events, not really comparable to anything else. That means you can make distinctions from any analogy I provide. And I can say, “Well, generally, we DO protect ‘innocent’ life, but there are no other situations where ‘innocent’ life takes over someone else’s body in order to survive and develop.” Which leaves us back at square one.
Up to my early teens, I was perfectly fine with prohibiting abortion. Here are some of the factors that changed my mind. This isn’t really meant to be an argument, but rather an insight into why I switched sides.
— I learned more about what pregnancy really entails. I saw first hand the enormous physical impact of even the easiest pregnancy. I also saw women undergoing more severe impacts, such as being placed on bedrest for weeks on end.
— At the same time, I learned how little it takes to actually wind up pregnant. It can just take one time of being a little careless, or letting your partner pressure you into dispensing with adequate birth control, or not knowing that the pill may not work when you have the flu.
— I learned that girls and women are even more likely to become pregnant when reproductive information and birth control are not readily available. I learned that not everyone took adequate contraception for granted, as I did.
— I took a biology class where we learned the details of fetal development. I realized that the fetus is quite different from a full-blown baby. The pro-lifers had created this image in my mind of well-developed babies being murdered, but then it turned out that the early term fetuses weren’t like that at all.
— My mother talked to me about how pregnant girls in her era were packed off to homes for unwed mothers in disgrace, and forced to give their children up for adoption. She talked to me about how women & girls have very rarely had a say (historically) in the rules about how unintended pregnancy is handled. These ethical decisions have been made by the men of the church or mostly male lawmakers. While that fact in itself doesn’t make the pro-life position “wrong,” it did help me see the abortion debate as part of a larger pattern by which women have historically been excluded from decisionmaking about intimate aspects of their lives.
After considering these concrete realities, I just couldn’t get on board with the notion of abortion as murder. It seemed to elevate an abstraction — the potential of a baby — over the real needs of actual women.
AM,
Totally. Women are not children who need to be protected from the consequences of their decisions, or told how they will feel as if we do not know our own minds.
OK, pro-choicer let’s just take all of your justifications and follow them to their conclusion.
— I learned more about what pregnancy really entails. I saw first hand the enormous physical impact of even the easiest pregnancy. I also saw women undergoing more severe impacts, such as being placed on bedrest for weeks on end…AND SO IT’S OK IF A WOMAN KILLS HER CHIL.
— At the same time, I learned how little it takes to actually wind up pregnant. It can just take one time of being a little careless, or letting your partner pressure you into dispensing with adequate birth control, or not knowing that the pill may not work when you have the flu…AND SO IT’S OK IF A WOMAN KILLS HER CHILD.
— I learned that girls and women are even more likely to become pregnant when reproductive information and birth control are not readily available. I learned that not everyone took adequate contraception for granted, as I did…AND SO IT’S OK IF A WOMAN KILLS HER CHILD.
— I took a biology class where we learned the details of fetal development. I realized that the fetus is quite different from a full-blown baby. The pro-lifers had created this image in my mind of well-developed babies being murdered, but then it turned out that the early term fetuses weren’t like that at all…AND SO IT’S OK IF A WOMAN KILLS HER CHILD.
— My mother talked to me about how pregnant girls in her era were packed off to homes for unwed mothers in disgrace, and forced to give their children up for adoption. She talked to me about how women & girls have very rarely had a say (historically) in the rules about how unintended pregnancy is handled. These ethical decisions have been made by the men of the church or mostly male lawmakers. While that fact in itself doesn’t make the pro-life position “wrong,” it did help me see the abortion debate as part of a larger pattern by which women have historically been excluded from decisionmaking about intimate aspects of their lives…AND SO IT’S OK IF A WOMAN KILLS HER CHILD.
****
Look, PC’er nothing you stated does anything to morally, or even logically defend abortion. All of your reasons to support abortion could be easily remedied through other means that do not involve the death of a human being. It may ease you conscience to believe that something “less than” an “actual” person is being killed in order to help solve your observations, but it doesn’t change the fact that a human being is being killed.
Oh and one more thing, PCer. A fetus is every bit as alive and actual as the woman who kills it.
AM, Pro-choicer, we’re giving women the benefit of the doubt that they have not been fully informed about fetal development.
Maybe you’re right and they are totally informed that they are killing a unique, living human being. If so, society is in an even worse place than I thought.
As to their own emotional state, I believe people deserve to be warned if they are about to do something that may irreversably harm their mental state.
I have done a lot of things in my life that I regret, but I have to say that I am immensely thankful that I do not have to live with the knowledge that I killed my own child. I know so many women who live with this burden, and I know that they would do anything to keep another person from having to carry the same regret.
If only women were told the consequences of abortion. They aren’t. If told exactly what happens during an abortion, shown the ultrasound of her baby and then given TIME to think through it she might make the best decision for herself and her baby. Sadly that is not how it works.
PC,
Stick around. You might learn about real people with real experiences.
In its Sunday edition, on February 8, 2009, “The Bemidji Pioneer” printed my following “Letter to the Editor”:
I had titled the letter, “Collin Peterson Committed to Protecting Life”, but it was changed to:
“Peterson opposed lifting ban on foreign abortions”
“While Collin Peterson uses his pen to urge Obama to continue America’s policy of protecting the life of the unborn overseas, Obama ignores written Congressional request and, as his first act, uses the Presidential pen as a knife to the throats of the unborn overseas.
It is clear to see, by comparing the actions of these two (2) Democrats, that Peterson is a true American committed by his actions to show to the world that all humanity is created equal which humanity obviously includes the helpless voiceless.”
“Bristol Palin: Abstinence isn’t working….”
I’m always intrigued when anyone makes such a statement. Doesn’t work with respect to what? If your goal is to avoid pregnancy (not that this is the most worthwhile goal in the world), then not having sex seems like a pretty good bet. How else are children “accidentally” conceived? Naked gymnastics accidents?
Bri, I’ve made a similar comment many times… what… you slipped on the soap in the bathroom and accidentally fell naked onto your accidentally naked partner?
Abstinence works just fine… it is we human beings who don’t want to practice abstinence.