(Prolifer)ations 8-5-11
by Susie Allen, host of the blog, Pro-Life in TN, and Kelli
We welcome your suggestions for additions to our Top Blogs (see tab on right side of home page)! Email Susie@jillstanek.com.
- Pro-Life Action League lauds the decision of the liberal CA 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to protect the free speech of sidewalk counselors like Pastor Walter Hoye, who was jailed for allegedly violating a “bubble zone” ordinance in Oakland. The court established that the law should apply to clinic escorts as well as sidewalk counselors. Pastor Hoye will be a guest speaker at the upcoming National Sidewalk Counseling Symposium in the Twin Cities.
- Wesley J. Smith wonders if selling vital body parts such as kidneys to finance higher education – which has been suggested by a professor in the UK – will be the next in a long line of human exploitations:
This won’t happen any time soon, but organ selling is being pushed in some very high places – such as by noted American psychiatrist and public advocate, Sally Satel. Once we accept it is okay to sell body parts – which we already do with egg sales (a reason such transactions should be banned) – the only place left for haggling will be the allowable organs and the price. Or to put it another way, we are all potentially coal mines now.
- SuzyB discusses the “Signs of Hope” which will be posted in Louisiana abortion clinics beginning this November. The signs, which Planned Parenthood calls “offensive” and “condescending,” inform women of their rights (click to enlarge):
- Reflections of a Paralytic extends congratulations to Nick Vujicic of LifeWithoutLimbs.org on his recent engagement to a young woman named Kanae.
- John Smeaton is re-launching an online index on various charities and their stances on embryonic stem cell research, prenatal testing, etc. One featured group is the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, a national UK charity which funds research and care for individuals with CF.
- Vital Signs discusses the new HHS/Obama administration decision to force insurers to pay for contraception, including abortifacients, “[a] social disaster in the making.” The religious exemptions are narrow and full of loopholes that threaten religious freedom and the conscience requirement.
- Women of Faith in Culture notes that, thanks to the rise of women like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, there is a trend of redefining feminism to one of “evangelical feminism” – emphasis on the “evangelical.”
- ProWomanProLife is impressed with Japan’s idea of house sharing – integrating single mothers and the elderly into one living space, and believes marginalized people groups in Canada could benefit from a similar arrangement.
Aug.05, 2011 3:30 pm |
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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.
How is the Sign of Hope Know Your Rights “offensive” or “condescending?”
Anyone? Anyone?
I was wondering the exact same thing, Carla.
So Biggz, Reality, Hal, Doug, CC??
Any of you want to take a stab at explaining why posting the rights of women in an abortion mill would be considered offensive or condescending by PP?
*raises hand* OOOOoooo Carla, pick me!
Is it because it tells the truth and doesn’t say anything about abortion being empowering and stuff about “choice” and things like that!
Anything that goes beyond “Abortion is, like, the best thing evarrr” is considered condescending and misleading to pro-aborts. They don’t want women to make informed decisions, they just want to make sure women abort at all costs.
“Any of you want to take a stab at explaining why posting the rights of women in an abortion mill would be considered offensive or condescending by PP?”
If you could put together some signage for Planned Parenthood, what would it be?
“They don’t want women to make informed decisions, they just want to make sure women abort at all costs.”
If a woman comes into Planned Parenthood for an abortion, why should Planned Parenthood try to dissuade her from an abortion which, under the current law, is her right. If a woman or man wants to be sterilized, by whatever means, is it up to the doctor to dissuade them. Should they be treated to biblical verses which encourage them to ”bear fruit?” Planned Parenthood performs voluntary surgery just like any doctor which does it for those who have private health care plans. It’s not up to doctors at PP or anywhere else to try to talk their patients out of an operation which they have a right to. I had my uterus removed when it still could have “born fruit.” Guess, I should have been persuaded to keep it?
Organ selling? How much can I get for a kidney? I have the universal blood type!
Just kidding, that’s gross.
Answer the question CC.
Why would PP consider that sign offensive? Do you consider it offensive to inform a woman of her rights??
Mary Lee!!! Good answer! A++
I know a couple of young women who have sold their eggs. It isn’t an easy process but they were well compensated.
“Why would PP consider that sign offensive? Do you consider it offensive to inform a woman of her rights??”
Upon reading the signage, it’s a not so subtle way to try to “lead” a woman away from the decision that she has made. Obviously, the statements are, from a policy perspective, straightforward but; in the context of an abortion waiting room, serve to influence women after they have made their decision. The points are straight out of the anti-choice playbook of reasons not to have an abortion. When I was waiting for my uterus removal, there were no signs telling me about coercion, etc. When men are waiting for their vascectomies, should they be faced with signs about waste of future sperm?
Yeah, these signs are just more pro-life propaganda – but this is Louisiana so what else is new. Funny, at some point, there might not be public agencies to assist these women!
CC,
If a woman comes into Planned Parenthood for an abortion, why should Planned Parenthood try to dissuade her from an abortion which, under the current law, is her right.
PP should determine if the woman knows her rights under the law (as enumerated in the sign under discussion), in case she is seeking an abortion under coercion, or because she believes that the father won’t have to pay child support, or if she believes she’d have to pay all adoption costs if she chose adoption, etc.
I don’t understand why you say the signs are “propaganda.” Do you believe a woman who is being coerced into an abortion should NOT be informed that it is illegal for anyone to coerce her?
PP should determine if the woman knows her rights under the law (as enumerated in the sign under discussion
Are private physicians, who do abortions, required to post the same signs? But whatever, I’ll be curious to see if these signs dissuade anybody.
“Do you believe a woman who is being coerced into an abortion should NOT be informed that it is illegal for anyone to coerce her.”
If a physician is called upon to perform an operation on a consenting adult, it’s not their responsibility to determine if they are coerced. Are you folks asking the same thing about every pregnant woman? Should these women be told that it is illegal for anyone to coerce them into having a baby? And if a woman gives birth, out of wedlock, it’s not, as far as I know, the responsibility of the hospital to talk to them about adoption options. If the woman seeks assistance in this manner, it is available but it isn’t mandatory.
I don’t know why pro-aborts are so against any measure that might cause a woman to not abort her child. Good grief. They call us “anti-choice” but they are against parental notification, informed consent, ultrasounds. Yeesh. Give it a rest, pro-aborts.
I don’t know why pro-aborts are so against any measure that might cause a woman to not abort her child
Because we respect the ability of a woman to make a decision regarding her body. We don’t presume to be acting in “loco parentis” for pregnant women – as do the intrusive anti-aborts. We trust women. You don’t.
Tell that to the teenagers who don’t know their options and are terrified, who are told that abortion will be easy and quick and they will never regret it. You respect deceiving those girls?
The language of that notice would hardly dissuade someone from an abortion except for those who were actually being pushed by a parent or boyfriend, and even folks who like legal abortion shouldn’t want young women not to know that it is illegal for her parents or boyfriend to force her to abort. Sure only a small percentage of the most vulnerable and ignorant don’t know or haven’t figured that out, but hey, those people matter, too.
Yo! I don’t find it ‘offensive’. A little ‘condescending’ perhaps.
The title of the act indicates it’s intent. And did you read the full content?
Agreed hippie (shock, horror!).
If a physician is called upon to perform an operation on a consenting adult, it’s not their responsibility to determine if they are coerced.
You do realize that your statement is complete nonsense, don’t you? The first words are simply assuming that every woman who goes into PP for an abortion is a consenting adult, which is very often not the case. Some are in fact, being coerced. Many girls getting abortions now are only 14 or 15 and certainly don’t meet the requirement of “adult.” The only way a doctor can find out if someone is a “consenting adult” is to make sure she’s not being coerced and is in fact an adult. Once that happens, of course there is no need to ask if she’s being coerced.
IF everyone getting an abortion were an adult and a free agent, then you could maybe claim their free agency should not be interfered with (if you accept abortion should be a permissible action in society, which I don’t). But you’ve done nothing to demonstrate that this is the case. There is a multitude of evidence to show that it is the case.
Are you denying that there are women and even very young girls being coerced into abortion? Come on, you know the truth, CC. For you to just stand there and keep babbling “trust women to make decisions about their bodies” in the face of all the coercion going on out there is what is not only condescending, but offensive.
CC,
You do realize that not ALL women have made a decision before going to an abortion clinic, right? You do know that some women just aren’t sure about what to do?
Rights good. Women’s rights good. Posting of women’s rights good.
I trust women. I don’t trust PP.
No, pro-aborts don’t trust women. They don’t trust women to make a fully-informed decision. This is glaringly obvious, and THAT is condescending, not a little sign stating the truth.
Hi CC,
Women should be told that it is illegal to be coerced/forced into an abortion!!
Do you agree with that?
The Center Against Forced Abortion
http://thejusticefoundation.org/cafa/
Also given that so many women end up regretting their abortions, shouldn’t we do what we can to help those women avoid that regret? If additional information about her rights and options causes her to decide abortion is not for her, that is a good thing! Even if some women who are fully committed to abort have to roll their eyes at the sign b/c they think it’s like so obvious, the tradeoff is more than worth it.
CT,
That might make abortions “rare” which is what proaborts seem to be aching for right??
WIN WIN!
Louisiana is my home state. We have a very conservative governor. It blesses me just to read that.
CC
Women like men sometimes change their mind. Look at it as additional information from a life affirming viewpoint. I’ll give you an example of how sometimes people do change their mind, when I was expecting my oldest son my aunt convinced me that I should get a tubal ligation. She was older then I was and because of this I decided to follow her advice and get a tubal ligation. Anyway after delivering my son the ob/gyn picked him up where I could see him and with his thick accent said do you still want to have your tubes tied. To some that would look like a very condescending thing to do but to me it helped me to evaluate the situation with my heart and I said no I don’t. Because of that decision I now have Daniel my 20 year old who has brought me enough joy to last several lifetimes. Now when I hear someone with an Indian accent I just smile because that doctor not only respected the humanity of my child and me but also the humanity of any future children I was going to have.
Carla,
Exactly b/c NO ONE is pro-abortion. NO ONE.
Carla
That’s so true there always saying they want to make abortions rare. I think there strength are their words are was their words they’re very wordy. I think it’s kind of poetic justice when we take them at there word and implement strategies that will indeed make abortions rare. I don’t want to say you can almost hear them howl that would be insulting the wolf so I’ll say instead. I don’t think they’re very happy. :)
Let’s face it: The thing PP and other abortion clinics fear the most about the signs is the LOSS of a sale of an abortion. Period. It’s all about the MONEY. Always HAS BEEN and always WILL BE.
Agreed, Mike!!
To those that say they are prochoice and support ALL choices it begs the question how much do you support your local CPC? Do you put your money where your mouth is? Do you volunteer there?
How do you support mothers who want to have their babies?
Obviously abortion advocates do not care about women and underage girls who arrive at an abortionists business with a very conflicted situation. No. They want girls to abort at all costs. They wait in parking lots, and pounce on the girls and their companions, making sure they don’t go anywhere but from the car to the abortionist’s door. Many of us have been in these so called clinics ourselves. The screening process consists of ‘how will you pay’ not ‘do you really want to be here today?’
I pray for all of you, no matter how condescending you find that.
ninek,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6epHJ0M4JY
This is footage from a PP where I pray to end abortion. Let’s get out that umbrella so the women are shielded from prolife literature!!
All about choice, right?
To the commenters saying ‘it’s not a doctor’s job’, actually, it is. Abortion is an elective procedure. In all other areas of medicine anytime a patient requests elective surgery, such as gastric bypass, liposuction, vasectomy, face-life, electived mastecomy, etc, the patient is carefully screened to verify 1) they understand the risks 2) they are not being undually swayed by another 3) they are of sound mind to consent. And, if the doctor is not convinced, such as an obese patient thinking gastric bypass will save his marriage because then he’ll be thin and that will fix his problems. The doctor has an ethical responsibility to refuse to operate and refer for couseling. Some elective surgeries, like sterilizations, typically require a signed consent 30 days before the surgery so everyone can make extra sure the patient really wants to go through with it. Some surgeries, like cosmetic surgeries, are recognized as addictive or self-perpetuating and doctors will refuse to do continuing surgeries even if the patient otherwise appears in sound mind.
Somehow abortion, a dangerous, painful, potentially disabling or deadly surgery that ends the life of a human being and has been shown to have 1) a high chance of emotionally/mentally negative outcomes 2) high chance of cohersion 3) high chance of repeat, is supposed to be exempt from such common sense measures? When a woman sits in a plastic surgery suite and cries as she reads the admittance paperwork the doc is rightly conserned and going to refuse the surgery until further evaluation. But if a woman comes into an abortion clinic, regardless of how she got there, who is with her, or what her apparent state of mind is, we are all just supposed to trust that this is absolutely 100% what she wants and she is fully aware of all applicable information and the abortion should be scheduled and carried out asap?
CC: Upon reading the signage, it’s a not so subtle way to try to “lead” a woman away from the decision that she has made. Obviously, the statements are, from a policy perspective, straightforward but; in the context of an abortion waiting room, serve to influence women after they have made their decision.
Yeah, it’s definitely slanted. I’m totally fine with the anti-coercion message, and the mention of adoptive parents paying doesn’t bother me, but there is an element of propaganda in the others, i.e. “carry your child to term” = distinctly puts a spin on it, since “child” is entirely subjective, there; and, IMO, giving birth to a baby just because the man will have to pay child support is not a good thing.
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Carla: Any of you want to take a stab at explaining why posting the rights of women in an abortion mill would be considered offensive or condescending by PP?
As above, it’s not just really “rights of women,” it’s also a propaganda ploy. In the same vein, things could be worded from a pro-choice perspective, and then pro-lifers would “have a problem” with them, in all or in part.
Hey thanks Doug,
My rights and the rights of women is also a propaganda ploy?
Women have the right to NOT be coerced or forced to have an abortion.
Explain the ploy in placing it so women that are being coerced or forced to have an abortion can read that.
Never mind.
I refuse to ride the Doug Go Round today.
Have a good one, dude.
Carla: My rights and the rights of women is also a propaganda ploy?
No.
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Women have the right to NOT be coerced or forced to have an abortion.
Yes – agreed 100%.
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Explain the ploy in placing it so women that are being coerced or forced to have an abortion can read that.
Never said anything to that effect. What I said was, “I’m totally fine with the anti-coercion message.”
Abortionists do not trust women or they would provide accurate information about fetal development (not describe a six week old embryo as a “blob of tissue” with “heart tones”),
Abortion advocates are pro-abortion. I cannot count the number of times I’ve seen remarks like “abortion reduces crime” in on-line posts. All women should be offended by the presumption that children will grow up to be criminals – even unwanted children. Americans should also be offended by that presumption because it judges one guilty before one commits a crime.
Doug: “As above, it’s not just really ‘rights of women,’ it’s also a propaganda ploy. In the same vein, things could be worded from a pro-choice perspective, and then pro-lifers would ‘have a problem’ with them, in all or in part.”
I don’t understand why pro-choice people would not be in favor of promoting the avoidance of abortion. It doesn’t make them less pro-choice. It just means they actually mean the “rare” thing.
Being pro-choice is perfectly consistent with trying to persuade women to avoid abortion. As far as I know, being pro-choice simply means being in favor of an OPTION of abortion. It doesn’t mean not having a preference, and advocating for that preference. Being pro-choice does not in the least entail not trying to influence a woman.
There’s nothing in respecting a woman’s right to make a choice that entails not advising her in a particular direction. That she is legally free to make a choice that results in what she considers a safe outcome is only going to result in rare abortions if she is advised against abortion — and there’s simply no reason a pro-choice person could not do so. None.
I’m pro-choice about people’s beverage selections — I think rum binges should be safe, legal and rare. That doesn’t mean I’m loathe to counsel folks to have a glass of O.J. instead of a swig o’ rum, if they’re thirsty. I don’t take it as some moral high ground to be non-directive in advising them.
Barb: Abortionists do not trust women or they would provide accurate information about fetal development (not describe a six week old embryo as a “blob of tissue” with “heart tones”)
Well, “trusting women” would be giving abortions to women who come in saying they want one.
I agree that it’s not just a blob at that point, although from one way of looking at it we’re all just “a blob of tissue.” I will say that at six weeks we are talking about an embryo that is 1/12 to 1/6 of an inch long. On “heart tones” – yeah, that sounds silly, for sure. Is there really a heart, and is it beating or not? If it is, then it is. From a little internet searching, looks to me like around 6 or 7 weeks there is a heartbeat.
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Abortion advocates are pro-abortion.
That’s not true, or at the least you are confusing pro-choice with being “abortion advocates.” I’m pro-choice and would be fine if nobody wanted to have an abortion.
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I cannot count the number of times I’ve seen remarks like “abortion reduces crime” in on-line posts.
Well, think about it. Obviously, it does. It could only not be true if, among the people that would have resulted from there being no abortions, there would have been zero that committed crimes – obviously, an impossibility. Meanwhile and furthermore, it’s reasonable to presume a higher crime rate among people resulting from unwanted pregnancies versus those from wanted pregnancies, just as it’s reasonable to expect a general lower performance in school from kids from one-parent homes.
“Well, think about it. Obviously, it does. It could only not be true if, among the people that would have resulted from there being no abortions, there would have been zero that committed crimes – obviously, an impossibility.”
Granted. Though how many of those criminals will commit bad enough crimes to be convicted of the death penalty, we can only speculate.
“Meanwhile and furthermore, it’s reasonable to presume a higher crime rate among people resulting from unwanted pregnancies versus those from wanted pregnancies, just as it’s reasonable to expect a general lower performance in school from kids from one-parent homes.”
Assuming your assumptions are correct, I fail to see how this is a valid argument for abortion. Are there other situations where it is okay to cull the population to reduce crime? If unwanted kids are so prone to criminality, what is stopping us from taking care of them when they are already born?
Of course, I am being sarcastic. But really, the argument kinda lends itself to absurdity.
Rasqual: I don’t understand why pro-choice people would not be in favor of promoting the avoidance of abortion. It doesn’t make them less pro-choice. It just means they actually mean the “rare” thing.
Another good post, Rasqual – I clicked “Liked.” : )
I think the “rare” sentiment among pro-choicers comes from the feeling that it’s better to prevent unwanted pregnancies rather than end them via abortion. Once an unwanted pregnancy is fact, obviously prevention is no longer an option.
Now then, as far as presenting factual information to the pregnant woman – I’ve no problem with that, and truly am against coercion – things against the woman’s will (either way).
Spinning things a certain way – and some of that Louisiana stuff does that – goes well beyond presenting factual information.
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Being pro-choice is perfectly consistent with trying to persuade women to avoid abortion. As far as I know, being pro-choice simply means being in favor of an OPTION of abortion. It doesn’t mean not having a preference, and advocating for that preference. Being pro-choice does not in the least entail not trying to influence a woman.
Agreed – it does not necessarily mean not having a preference, because we are talking in generalities – “pro-life” and “pro-choice”. The “being for the legal option of abortion” pretty well covers it, regardless of one’s leanings, if any, either way. Yet that also includes the relative few who basically would indeed rather see abortion chosen than not – perhaps on the basis of their concern for the environment (or whatever).
If one wishes strongly enough for a given outcome, i.e. abortion is chosen or not chosen, to the point that one is propagandizing against the woman’s wishes (or in spite of them) then I’d say they really are not pro-choice as far as the pregnant woman is concerned, but rather pro-their-own-choice.
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There’s nothing in respecting a woman’s right to make a choice that entails not advising her in a particular direction. That she is legally free to make a choice that results in what she considers a safe outcome is only going to result in rare abortions if she is advised against abortion — and there’s simply no reason a pro-choice person could not do so. None.
Again – once an unwanted pregnancy is fact, projecting one’s own desires onto the pregnant woman, or attempting to sway her – especially by biased and subjective means – is hardly truly “pro-choice.”
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I’m pro-choice about people’s beverage selections — I think rum binges should be safe, legal and rare. That doesn’t mean I’m loathe to counsel folks to have a glass of O.J. instead of a swig o’ rum, if they’re thirsty. I don’t take it as some moral high ground to be non-directive in advising them.
On what basis do you counsel them, there? If it’s strictly factual/biological, then all is well, IMO. If it’s because “alcohol is the Devil’s brew,” then not.
Rum – yuck. Did have some gin tonight – the particularly fine Hendrick’s. Now a 2005 Mersault, but I fear it’s “corked.” : (
Da Jackster: Assuming your assumptions are correct, I fail to see how this is a valid argument for abortion. Are there other situations where it is okay to cull the population to reduce crime?
It’s not directly an argument for abortion. From my point of view, it’s not an argument for abortion at all – regardless of the probabilities, there, IMO the desire of the pregnant woman is still paramount. But what Barb said was, “I’ve seen remarks like “abortion reduces crime” in on-line posts,” and that – regardless of one’s take on abortion – really cannot be argued with.
Culling the population to reduce crime – don’t think there is any meaningful sentiment for this, nor any meaningful precedent for it.
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If unwanted kids are so prone to criminality, what is stopping us from taking care of them when they are already born?
You tell me. My opinion is that we are failing our born kids in several ways these days, as a society and as many families, in general. Not saying that “this means more abortions should take place,” and I’m also not saying that any higher criminal rate makes a substantive difference here.
“It’s not directly an argument for abortion. From my point of view, it’s not an argument for abortion at all – regardless of the probabilities, there, IMO the desire of the pregnant woman is still paramount. But what Barb said was, “I’ve seen remarks like “abortion reduces crime” in on-line posts,” and that – regardless of one’s take on abortion – really cannot be argued with.”
Lol, I see your point. I didn’t think you were making a direct argument for abortion using that. If you were, I would have to point out that we also reduced our number of cops, judges, and prison guards too. :)
The problem is that I see people use this argument a lot, which really doesn’t make sense if you are using body autonomy and the pregnant woman’s rights as your basis for keeping abortion legal. It just bugs me, and I registered my irritation. ;) I had one person argue with me for HOURS that poverty, abuse, and crime were worse than being aborted. Considering I am a former poor abused criminal, I found that argument less than compelling.
“My opinion is that we are failing our born kids in several ways these days, as a society and as many families, in general. Not saying that “this means more abortions should take place,” and I’m also not saying that any higher criminal rate makes a substantive difference here.”
Well, if we could do a lot better at helping the poor and hopeless children I would bet good money that a lot of abortions wouldn’t happen anyway, so there is that.
Doug: “Again – once an unwanted pregnancy is fact, projecting one’s own desires onto the pregnant woman, or attempting to sway her – especially by biased and subjective means – is hardly truly ‘pro-choice’.”
You’ll have to explain why not. First of all, there’s nothing wrong with bias. I’m biased in favor of a proper view of how gravity works. Yet it’d be insane to say I shouldn’t be heard by someone drifting too close to the edge of the Grand Canyon, because I’m biased. It’s their choice whether to jump. That I favor a particular outcome and let them know of it doesn’t make it less their choice.
If pro-choice people are genuinely not pro-abortion, why are they not obviously in favor of avoiding abortion, and why aren’t they advising women in that direction? In short, why are pro-choice people not manning CPCs?
Why are pr0-choice people not actively pro-life, in other words? Seems to me they’re ridiculously confused about what “choice” actually means — and what it doesn’t mean.
I’m in favor of your right to choose a particular gin. Does that mean I shouldn’t stridently offer my opinion of my own favorite gin? Are you less capable of making a free choice once you’ve heard what I have to say? If you change your mind and choose differently once you’ve heard me, is your choice any less your freely chosen one? If someone answers “yes,” I’d have to ask how we can know anyone’s choice is authentically a free choice at all, if our view is that influence of a choice violates it. How did they come to their choice in the first place? Are we to assume their decision was absent influences of any kind? If not, then we’re not violating choice because it wasn’t authentic to begin with.
This stuff is actually pretty easy to think about — so why isn’t anyone actually doing it?
It’s difficult for pro-life people to think that pro-choice folk aren’t actually pro-abortion, when they refuse to understand that advising someone against abortion in no way compromises their right to choose abortion. Persuading them away from a decision to have an abortion to a decision not to have one is not in the least a violation of a genuine pro-choice ethic. If it violates any ethic, then that ethic is not pro-choice but is something else — quite possibly a simple pro-abortion ethic or, more probably, an anti-non-abortion ethic. “Anything my adversary favors, I must oppose.”
I didn’t think you were making a direct argument for abortion using that. If you were, I would have to point out that we also reduced our number of cops, judges, and prison guards too.
Jack, indeed. We don’t know how the given individual would turn out, good or bad, and how the ‘prediction’ (if any) could presumably outweigh the desire of the pregnant woman is beyond me, i.e. even if things can be quantified pretty accurately, are we going to tell women with unwanted pregnancies that “your genetic makeup gives a better-than-average chance for your baby to end up a doctor, lawyer, or indian chief?” Or, for a woman with a wanted pregnancy, “your baby will have a better-than-average chance to be a criminal”?
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The problem is that I see people use this argument a lot, which really doesn’t make sense if you are using body autonomy and the pregnant woman’s rights as your basis for keeping abortion legal. It just bugs me, and I registered my irritation. I had one person argue with me for HOURS that poverty, abuse, and crime were worse than being aborted. Considering I am a former poor abused criminal, I found that argument less than compelling.
That sounds odd to me from the get-go, since how would “poverty, abuse, and crime” apply on the individual level – where it must for statements that “being aborted would be better” to apply, if they did. Just painting them as possibilities doesn’t matter enough to me that I’d say it outweighs the other stuff we’re talking about.
Not that it can’t apply on the individual level to the point where the individual wishes to die, thinks that death is preferable, etc. I’m saying that we can’t predict that in advance, almost always.
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“My opinion is that we are failing our born kids in several ways these days, as a society and as many families, in general. Not saying that “this means more abortions should take place,” and I’m also not saying that any higher criminal rate makes a substantive difference here.”
Well, if we could do a lot better at helping the poor and hopeless children I would bet good money that a lot of abortions wouldn’t happen anyway, so there is that.
Yeah, really, there I have no doubt.
First of all, there’s nothing wrong with bias. I’m biased in favor of a proper view of how gravity works. Yet it’d be insane to say I shouldn’t be heard by someone drifting too close to the edge of the Grand Canyon, because I’m biased. It’s their choice whether to jump. That I favor a particular outcome and let them know of it doesn’t make it less their choice.
Rasqual, there’s a big difference between physical reality, as with the existence and effect of gravity, and our feelings on the morality of abortion. I suggest that somebody jumping down the Grand Canyon is likely not doing it due to confusion about gravity.
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If pro-choice people are genuinely not pro-abortion, why are they not obviously in favor of avoiding abortion, and why aren’t they advising women in that direction? In short, why are pro-choice people not manning CPCs?
Because they are neutral, on abortion per se, and rather that they leave it up to the pregnant woman, rather than attempting to project their own opinion.
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Why are pro-choice people not actively pro-life, in other words? Seems to me they’re ridiculously confused about what “choice” actually means — and what it doesn’t mean.
Pro-choice means being in favor of the pregnant woman or girl deciding, and having the legal right to decide. “Advising” one way or the other, based on one’s own personal opinion, isn’t being pro-choice for the pregnant woman, but rather pro-one’s-own-opinion.
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I’m in favor of your right to choose a particular gin. Does that mean I shouldn’t stridently offer my opinion of my own favorite gin?
Depends on what we’re after. A free interchange of ideas and preferences is one thing. Advocating legal restrictions is another.
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Are you less capable of making a free choice once you’ve heard what I have to say? If you change your mind and choose differently once you’ve heard me, is your choice any less your freely chosen one? If someone answers “yes,” I’d have to ask how we can know anyone’s choice is authentically a free choice at all, if our view is that influence of a choice violates it. How did they come to their choice in the first place? Are we to assume their decision was absent influences of any kind? If not, then we’re not violating choice because it wasn’t authentic to begin with.
I think that’s pretty much right on. Hearing what others have to say is cool, IMO, although plenty of pro-lifers complain about what some pro-choicers say, again – the feeling that it’s propaganda. In the end I’d say it’s a matter of degree. Leaving the decision to the pregnant woman is one thing, and it may not be altered significantly by one giving their opinion. Past a certain point, and it gets to be anti-choice, whether one is advising the pregnant woman not to have an abortion, or to have one.
____
This stuff is actually pretty easy to think about — so why isn’t anyone actually doing it?
It’s difficult for pro-life people to think that pro-choice folk aren’t actually pro-abortion, when they refuse to understand that advising someone against abortion in no way compromises their right to choose abortion. Persuading them away from a decision to have an abortion to a decision not to have one is not in the least a violation of a genuine pro-choice ethic. If it violates any ethic, then that ethic is not pro-choice but is something else — quite possibly a simple pro-abortion ethic or, more probably, an anti-non-abortion ethic. “Anything my adversary favors, I must oppose.”
Much the same as pro-choicers see others as anti-choice when they see somebody “advising” or putting so much “spin” on things that it reveals the true motive as enforcing the speaker’s opinion, be it “against abortion” or “for abortion” in the specific case, rather than truly leaving the door open for the pregnant woman to choose.
A genuine “pro-choice ethic” is not pretending that “carry your child to term” is neutral or even in line with the pregnant woman’s interest or desires, necessarily.
Abortion advocates wouldn’t know a genuine ethic if it jumped up and did a hula dance. They just keep insisting… oh, it’s not a child – calling IT a child is propaganda! Wow, that is so scientific and biological.
Ninek: Abortion advocates wouldn’t know a genuine ethic if it jumped up and did a hula dance.
You are confusing your opinion with “genuine ethic.”
____
They just keep insisting… oh, it’s not a child – calling IT a child is propaganda! Wow, that is so scientific and biological.
Some do insist that, and it’s no more of a meaningful argument than is stomping your feet and insisting that it is a child.
From dictionary.reference.com:
child
noun, plural chil·dren.
1. a person between birth and full growth; a boy or girl: booksfor children.
2. a son or daughter: All my children are married.
3. a baby or infant.
4. a human fetus.
5.a childish person: He’s such a child about money.
Pro-choice assertions that it is pro-life propaganda to post signs that refer to a woman’s fetus as a “child” just proves my point that “Pro-choice” means pro-abortion. I am a 57 year old woman who is still the child of my parents. My three adult offspring are still my children. My fetus, aborted at 13 weeks, is still my child. The abortion industry would do well to carefully ascertain a woman’s attitude about her pending abortion and whether she is fully aware of the alternatives and help available – so many in the pro-life movement today are post-abortive and our numbers grow.
And I am offended that you make an argument that my child was better off dead because she (or he) would likely grow up to become a criminal or a burden to the state. Perhaps you should search your hearts – you might just be bigoted against poor people or out of wedlock children.
To all of you who are asking why pro- choice don’t insist that pregnant women hear everything about their options, I pose a question.
Do you feel like a womAn who has decided to give birth and keep the baby should be counciled on her options and be told that there are people willing to adopt her
baby. Should she be screened for coercion and
made sure that she really wants the pregnancy
( and isn’t being forced by her boyfriend) should
she be told details of the excruciating details of what delivery to make sure she wants to proceed?
I personally think it’s a little insulting to make sure a pregnant woman who wants to keep to keep her baby is told to consider abortion and adoption… But I guess for the reasons you all stated you can’t not tell pregnant women all her options, and logically that would have to apply to women who wanted abortion or not
I find that notice totally acceptable and not at anti- abortion btw
Shannon — absolutely, I believe that women should be made aware of all of their options. The only thing that I’d quibble with is the “excruciating delivery” part — I’ve done childbirth three times, all unmedicated, and I would not describe the experiences as excruciating. Given the pain relief options for women in labor these days — epidurals and such — delivery is seldom “excruciating.” Painful, yes, but so is an abortion procedure (I had a D&C for a missed miscarriage and I was in pain afterwards — the cramps felt like labor pains to me, anyway).
Doug
Because you post often, I think I have a sense of what you believe are the rights of women. Would you mind writing a few things that you think the human residing in his mothers’ womb has a right to. Feel free to refer to the baby human as an embryo just try to write what you think their rights are. Thanks.
Doug
I have another question when pro-choicers say that you need to trust women do you think the unborn babies are included in that sentiment or is that just for the grown folk?
Sorry one more. If you were to encounter a pro-choicer who debated that the pre-born had no intrinsic value would you question his definition of pro-choice or would you think he might not be to honest. Try to keep it simple. The gift of gab is best used sensibly. Too much and people might become confused.
CC says: August 5, 2011 at 6:06 pm
“If you could put together some signage for Planned Parenthood, what would it be?”
=====================================================================
CAUTION: More than half the customers entering these premises do not survive the experience.
CAUTION: Elective abortion is hazardous to your health and deadly to your pre-natal child.
CAUTION: When your momma was pregnant with you, what species of embryo/fetus was present in her uterus?
[Hint: Same species of embryo/fetus that is present in your uterus.]
CAUTION: No matter who provided the sperm, the human embryo/fetus in your uterus is no less YOUR baby.
Just how did I become involved in your ’choice’ to have sex?
Pay for your own recreational drugs.
The ‘choice’ was free, the abortion is not.
KEEP YOUR UTERUS OUT OF MY WALLET.
Pay for your own elective surgery.
Shannon says: August 7, 2011 at 12:49 pm
1. “Do you feel like a womAn who has decided to give birth and keep the baby should be counciled on her options and be told that there are people willing to adopt her
baby?”
2. “Should she be screened for coercion and made sure that she really wants the pregnancy ( and isn’t being forced by her boyfriend) should she be told details of the excruciating details of what delivery to make sure she wants to proceed?”
1. If the equivalent information is offerred all pregnant women as part of ‘informed consent’ I would say, “Yes”
2. If the equivalent information is offerred all pregnant wome as part of ‘informed consent’ then I would say, “Yes”.
And I will be so bold as to voice an preference for all the pre-natal children of these pregnant women. “YES!” “Unequivocally, YES!”
Sperm from mice stem cells offers infertility hope
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_STEM_CELLS?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-08-07-02-46-07
TOKYO (AP) — A team of scientists has reported producing viable sperm using the stem cells of mice in an experiment that researchers hope could one day lead to treating infertile men.
===================================================================
Aw shucks!
This may make the imagining’ of the ’last democrat’ an impossible dream.
Is it still legal?
Yes?
OK, good.
Doug: “Rasqual, there’s a big difference between physical reality, as with the existence and effect of gravity, and our feelings on the morality of abortion.”
True. If I’m just communicating my feelings and not something that should be obvious to them about physical realities, then I’m even LESS intruding on their choice. You’re making my point better than I’d intended. ;-)
“‘Advising’ one way or the other, based on one’s own personal opinion, isn’t being pro-choice for the pregnant woman, but rather pro-one’s-own-opinion.”
Why? This neutrality thing is absurd. People opine all the time about everthing, to everyone — despite the fact that people they’re talking to face choices about the subject. But suddenly when it comes to abortion, everyone has an obligation to adopt some “I can neither confirm nor deny my views on the subject” attitude?
That’s preposterous. It seems to me it’s more a ridiculous claim of high ground (“I’m being studiously neutral!”) while taking as a given the idea that there’s no moral viewpoint worth persuading someone of.
You haven’t really explained why offering directive advice in any way violates someone’s choice. It’s still their choice — even if you persuade them.
Pro-lifers who’d let you get away with denying that, or avoiding it, or merely asserting the contrary without argument, would be terribly stupid. I’m not going to be one of them.
Much the same as pro-choicers see others as anti-choice when they see somebody “advising” or putting so much “spin” on things that it reveals the true motive as enforcing the speaker’s opinion, be it “against abortion” or “for abortion” in the specific case, rather than truly leaving the door open for the pregnant woman to choose.
No, because they too are in thrall to the notion that advising someone is ant-choice. Once they learn otherwise, that isn’t true. ;-)
CC
This is what I would write:
You and your baby deserve better than abortion.
Abortion is an assault to a womans’ dignity.
Your body, your mind, your baby. :)
One of the saddest equations. 2-1=1
The saddest equation. 2-1= less than one. Abortion affects your own sense of wholeness.
And an even sadder equation for grandparents 2-1 sometimes equals 0 when the mom and the baby die.
When you know that you don’t have the resources to keep your baby consider an open adoption.
When your heart aches and your mind tells you your all alone do a little research to prove your mind wrong after seeing the real facts your heart will feel better too.
Your an American woman if abortion is being pushed on you by anyone choose to make a better choice.
Love yourself and your baby.
Is it still legal?
Yes?
OK, good.
Not for long. All injustice eventually comes to an end. ;)
Abortion fan, you are young and probably haven’t had as many medical experiences yet. As a matter of fact, you are given full disclosure about everything EXCEPT abortion. I was told more about my wisdom tooth extraction!
Also, my mother had a very painful delivery with her first and a shockingly easy second delivery to mention 2, so not every woman’s delivery experience is identical. But women do routinely tell each other scare stories about delivery, some of which I find kind of cruel.
Shannon: Do you feel like a womAn who has decided to give birth and keep the baby should be counciled on her options and be told that there are people willing to adopt her baby.
Exactly – this is what I meant about writing things from a perspective that pro-lifers would likely have a problem with. Another example – should women with early pregnancies be told that having an abortion, to a point in gestation, presents less risk to them, versus continuing the pregnancy and carrying to term?
Myrtle: Because you post often, I think I have a sense of what you believe are the rights of women. Would you mind writing a few things that you think the human residing in his mothers’ womb has a right to. Feel free to refer to the baby human as an embryo just try to write what you think their rights are. Thanks.
Myrtle, good question. “Unborn baby” is fine with me. I don’t think the unborn baby should have any rights, to a point in gestation. Prior to that time, which currently I’d put at 22 weeks, I am for leaving things entirely up to the pregnant woman or the couple – the parents. As we have it now – the restrictions on late-term abortion – I think they constitute a limited form of personhood and rights, and I’m fine with that.
____
I have another question when pro-choicers say that you need to trust women do you think the unborn babies are included in that sentiment or is that just for the grown folk?
No, I don’t think the unborn babies are included in that – the premise being that the woman’s desire should be granted, and that the unborn have no desire (to a point in gestation IMO).
____
Sorry one more. If you were to encounter a pro-choicer who debated that the pre-born had no intrinsic value would you question his definition of pro-choice or would you think he might not be to honest. Try to keep it simple. The gift of gab is best used sensibly. Too much and people might become confused.
Ha! I hear you on being brief and concise, Myrtle. It’s not always possible, though, if we want to be complete – if we’re not just talking about one situation or “all things in general,” but rather trying to address all possibilities.
No, I wouldn’t question that pro-choicer, since I agree – there is no such thing as “intrinsic value” (in the moral realm) since any such value is a product of the valuation in a sentiment mind, not anything inherent or intrinsic to the preborn, or the post-born, for that matter, nor for anything at all. The only way I’d think that pro-choicer (or anybody at all) was not being honest would be if I had reason to think they really felt differently.
Rasqual: If I’m just communicating my feelings and not something that should be obvious to them about physical realities, then I’m even LESS intruding on their choice. You’re making my point better than I’d intended.
Okay, so let’s take down 18,000,000 peoples’ feelings on the matter, and have them be required reading for pregnant women? ; )
If a woman thinks that it’s okay for her father to deem that she will have an abortion, though her own preference is not to, then I think that notifying her that that is not the case is fine. I don’t think it’s okay to attempt to sway her decision because someone else thinks it’s a “child.” Or “not a child,” for that matter.
___
“‘Advising’ one way or the other, based on one’s own personal opinion, isn’t being pro-choice for the pregnant woman, but rather pro-one’s-own-opinion.”
Why? This neutrality thing is absurd. People opine all the time about everthing, to everyone — despite the fact that people they’re talking to face choices about the subject. But suddenly when it comes to abortion, everyone has an obligation to adopt some “I can neither confirm nor deny my views on the subject” attitude?
It’s not just about abortion – do I think that the opinions of people who think “we have to reduce the population now” should be foisted upon women in gynecologist’s offices, women with wanted pregnancies? Heck no, I don’t.
Hey – if the pregnant woman wants to know somebody’s opinion, all fine and good – she can ask. But it being a *requirement* that a given opinion be posted in clincs, statewide – the heck with that.
_____
Pro-lifers who’d let you get away with denying that, or avoiding it, or merely asserting the contrary without argument, would be terribly stupid. I’m not going to be one of them.
I’m not saying that matters of external reality should be denied or avoided. Yet we quickly get to things like the example I made previously – should we be telling women with early pregnancies that the risk to them, in general, is less if they have an abortion, rather than continue the pregnancy and give birth? I don’t think so. I am trusting the women to know what they want, without putting “spin” on things any which way.
____
“Much the same as pro-choicers see others as anti-choice when they see somebody “advising” or putting so much “spin” on things that it reveals the true motive as enforcing the speaker’s opinion, be it “against abortion” or “for abortion” in the specific case, rather than truly leaving the door open for the pregnant woman to choose.”
No, because they too are in thrall to the notion that advising someone is ant-choice. Once they learn otherwise, that isn’t true. ;-)
I don’t think that’s true – “pro-choice” is being for what the woman or couple wants, whether or not it’s in line with the preferences of our given observer. There is also the difference between advising somebody of an external reality versus advising them of the speaker’s druthers.
Because abortionists lie about how many women are injured in their clinics,
because so many abortionists don’t have admitting priviledges in nearby emergency rooms,
because abortion advocates fight any efforts to document the real statistical risks of abortion,
because some states don’t even tabulate or report injuries and deaths to mothers who have abortions,
YOU don’t know. You don’t know if abortion is safer than birth. In the United States, maternal death rates (from births) are very low (I read on a CDC article it was around .004%). But as long as you DON’T KNOW, then any time you say that abortion is safer than childbirth, you are lying. It may be wishful thinking lies, or malicious lies. But it is a lie to say abortion is safer than birth.
I should hardly be shocked, the abortion industries is founded on lies.
Doug: “I don’t think it’s okay to attempt to sway her decision because someone else thinks it’s a ‘child.’ Or ‘not a child,’ for that matter.”
Fine and well, as far as it goes — but that’s not a necessary concomitant of a pro-choice view. You’re supplying something further.
If pro-choice folk think some pro-lifers are irrational for “bundling” contraception in their pro-lifer talk, I hope it’ll be well understood that what you’re describing is not essential to pro-choice and hence is its own irrational “bundling.”
“Hey – if the pregnant woman wants to know somebody’s opinion, all fine and good – she can ask. But it being a *requirement* that a given opinion be posted in clincs, statewide – the heck with that.”
Again, fine and well. But it’s not a “pro-choice” issue in the least.
“I don’t think that’s true – “pro-choice” is being for what the woman or couple wants, whether or not it’s in line with the preferences of our given observer. ”
You can’t be serious.
Why should believing a person should be free to make choices entail being “for” the particular action they choose?
As I said, you can’t be serious.
Doug
1. Could you cite your source to prove that unborn babies have no desire to live.
2. In cases where abortion is used as a form of contraception do you think the desire of the mom trumphs the inheritent rights of the unborn and if your life were at risk do you think your mindset would be different.
3. And what in your opinion is it about the pre-born that renders them valueless. Do you think it is their size, their vulnerability, or that they are so dependent on adults for their safety.
4. When you consider time through the eyes of a reasoning adult what is it about 9 months that allows your mind to conclude that 9 months is asking to much of a person to wait, what justifies in your mind the killing of a baby before it has a chance at life?
And do you think your perception of yourself would change if you acknowledged your beliefs that before 22 weeks of gestation the unborn had no desire to live knowing that a five year old who was born at 23 weeks is now a 5 year old? And in addition to your conclusion that prior to 22 weeks that the unborn had no desire to live you acknowledged that you also find them to be of no value if you contemplated your views and it was just you and your own conscience would your conclusions as to what the unborn prior to 22 weeks meant to you be reflective of your own sense of value or do you just ascribe these feelings to the unborn prior to 22 weeks. If you have no objective proof to any assumptions ascribed to the unborn prior to 22 weeks would you be enough of a reasoning adult to admit that your assumptions could possibly be wrong or are you content to continue using subjective reasoning to influence the lives and destinies of unborn children. If you would like to give more lengthy answers I guess I’ll have to muddle through them. One more question just came to mind do you think your general feeling of malaise about the pre-born prior to 22 weeks is reflective of your own self worth or do you feel really good about yourself and your feelings of malaise are just attributed to those like the unborn prior to 22 weeks who have not yet had the opportunity to verbablly voice their opinion. The more questions I write the more I have. Do you think in your opinion that if the pre-born prior to 22 weeks of gestation were able to communicate his or her desire to live in your opinion do you think that would make a difference in your characterization of them? And as an American citizen, do you believe to some degree we have all failed the weakest among us. Forgive me if some of the questions are repetitive.
Another example – should women with early pregnancies be told that having an abortion, to a point in gestation, presents less risk to them, versus continuing the pregnancy and carrying to term?
How about we just tell them “Hey, kill your kid now, so that way you won’t risk prison time killing your kid after birth.” Hooray for society’s mental disconnects! Right?
Reproduction is natural. Childbirth as a result is also natural. Even a miscarriage is “natural.” But abortion isn’t. They can try to make it “seem” natural – with chemical abortion pills that mimic a miscarriage, but it isn’t. It’s the intentional taking of a human life by a stronger human. Nothing is without risk – not even abortion. But a human being deliberately killed because someone else isn’t willing to risk a childbirth? Look – we have medical treatment in this country that will save a pregnant woman’s life if it is at risk during her pregnancy. Treating the pregnant woman for her illness is acceptable. If her unborn child dies as an indirect result of the treatment, this is not an elective abortion. Also, if a woman’s life is under immediate threat because of the pregnancy (like preeclampsia), efforts are always made to save both mother and child.
There are two patients – and the legitimate, top of the barrel medical community acts on this. As for the bottom of the barrel – they are the ones who kill preborn children for profit, ignoring and/or downplaying their humanity.
Ninek: YOU don’t know. You don’t know if abortion is safer than birth. In the United States, maternal death rates (from births) are very low (I read on a CDC article it was around .004%). But as long as you DON’T KNOW, then any time you say that abortion is safer than childbirth, you are lying. It may be wishful thinking lies, or malicious lies. But it is a lie to say abortion is safer than birth.
There are also things that happen to women who continue pregnancies that are not tabulated into the risk statistics. I agree that abortion may not be “70 times safer” or ”11 times safer” or “10 times safer” as the raw statistics have indicated for very early-term abortions. But though you are right that the mortality rate, per se, for giving birth (in the US, anyway) is very low, that does not change the fact of risk multiples and that having an abortion early enough in gestation is safer than continuing pregnancies and carrying to term.
Or, to even forget about the comparison with continuing pregnancies, what if it were state law to post that “having an early-term abortion is very, very safe”? I imagine that pro-lifers could not be all that happy with it, per the theme of this thread.
“Another example – should women with early pregnancies be told that having an abortion, to a point in gestation, presents less risk to them, versus continuing the pregnancy and carrying to term?”
Kel: How about we just tell them “Hey, kill your kid now, so that way you won’t risk prison time killing your kid after birth.” Hooray for society’s mental disconnects! Right?
Well there you go, Kel – you wouldn’t be happy about that, just as a certain amount of “spin” in the Louisiana clinics has garnered some objections too.
Of the two living human beings entering an abortion clinic 1 of them will die there.
Abortion is “safe” for whom?
Doug: “I don’t think it’s okay to attempt to sway her decision because someone else thinks it’s a ‘child.’ Or ‘not a child,’ for that matter.”
Rasqual: Fine and well, as far as it goes — but that’s not a necessary concomitant of a pro-choice view. You’re supplying something further.
And it’s that “supplying something further” that was being objected to. It’s supplying a subjective agenda. As CC said, “The points are straight out of the anti-choice playbook of reasons not to have an abortion.” Personally – again – I’m fine with the anti-coercion message and the mention of adoptive parents paying fees. It’s the subjective stuff, which is indeed obviously coming from an anti-choice point of view, that I’m saying should go.
____
If pro-choice folk think some pro-lifers are irrational for “bundling” contraception in their pro-lifer talk, I hope it’ll be well understood that what you’re describing is not essential to pro-choice and hence is its own irrational “bundling.”
I don’t think that contraception information is “spinning” things from a propaganda standpoint, and of course when a pregnancy is already fact, what will the mention of contraception really matter, then? I’m saying leave out the irrational bundling altogether.
____
“Hey – if the pregnant woman wants to know somebody’s opinion, all fine and good – she can ask. But it being a *requirement* that a given opinion be posted in clinics, statewide – the heck with that.”
Again, fine and well. But it’s not a “pro-choice” issue in the least.
Cool – if we’re leaving out the subjective “pro-choice” as well as the “pro-life” spin, then all’s well IMO. I guess the question is when it does become an intrusion on the woman’s choice and when is it, on balance, an effort to portray a subjective agenda in the guise of “state regulations” or the like.
____
“No, because they too are in thrall to the notion that advising someone is anti-choice. Once they learn otherwise, that isn’t true. ;-) “
“I don’t think that’s true – “pro-choice” is being for what the woman or couple wants, whether or not it’s in line with the preferences of our given observer. ”
You can’t be serious. Why should believing a person should be free to make choices entail being “for” the particular action they choose? As I said, you can’t be serious.
I had to read that a couple times, and I didn’t say it very well. Let me change it to: “Being for the legal choice of abortion (or for the legal choice of continuing a pregnancy, for that matter) does not mean that one will necessarily prefer that a given choice be made, especially in all circumstances. Or, supporting legal abortion does not mean that a given pro-choicer “likes” abortion or wants women to choose abortions, per se.”
“Advising someone” may be all well and good, from a pro-choice perspective, same as it may be from a pro-life perspective. But we easily can get into the “spin” stuff where one side of the other will object, and rightly so, IMO, when the forum is government-mandated.
If you don’t know the real risks, but you keep insisting that abortion is safer than birth, then you clearly are not a wishful-thinking-liar, but you are a malicious liar.
You don’t know. There are NO facts to support your claim. You continue to type it. You are telling lies. This is the last time I will respond to your lies. I’d rather clean my cat’s box.
Myrtle: 1. Could you cite your source to prove that unborn babies have no desire to live.
That’s like proving a rock or an amoeba or a corn plant or a worm has no desire to live. You can’t prove a negative like that. If one asserts a positive – like “desire is there,” then the burden of proof is on them. Late enough in gestation, I agree that for most fetuses/unborn babies, desire is there – they have emotion, mental awareness, sensation, personality, etc. Brain waves are there, and they are tending toward the awareness we find in most full-term born infants. I am also saying that to a point in gestation there is no desire or any mental or emotional awareness at all for the unborn.
____
2. In cases where abortion is used as a form of contraception do you think the desire of the mom trumps the inherent rights of the unborn and if your life were at risk do you think your mindset would be different.
We’re already talking about elective abortion as far as I’m concerned – cases where there is no large or overwhelming need for abortion due to health concerns for the woman. I don’t think “contraception” sounds right, but obviously most abortions are due to the same desire – not to be pregnant – that makes for women using contraception. I’m saying there are no inherent rights, period, not for the unborn nor for the born, either. Rights are a mental concept, they are ideas, they are not things of physical reality that exist external to the mind. Regardless, I say let the woman decide, either way, to a point in gestation.
If my mom had had an abortion, there never would have been a “me” to be aware of any of this stuff. Yes, there was an “unborn baby,” if you will, there, but to project our current mindset on the unborn is to personify them to a degree which has no basis in reality.
____
3. And what in your opinion is it about the pre-born that renders them valueless. Do you think it is their size, their vulnerability, or that they are so dependent on adults for their safety.
I’m not saying they are valueless. Obviously, some of them have great value to the woman, couple, etc. I’m saying that being free in our society also has value, and that the preferences of others – that no abortion be had – is not a good enough reason to tell the woman “no” if she wants an abortion to a point in gestation.
____
4. When you consider time through the eyes of a reasoning adult what is it about 9 months that allows your mind to conclude that 9 months is asking to much of a person to wait, what justifies in your mind the killing of a baby before it has a chance at life?
I hear you on the “waiting time.” If I thought that we as a race had a massive and immediate need for every baby to be born, I might be in favor of more or almost-total restrictions on abortion. As things are now, miscarriages happen, abortions happen, and I don’t think we have a good enough reason to take away the freedom that women have right now.
___
And do you think your perception of yourself would change if you acknowledged your beliefs that before 22 weeks of gestation the unborn had no desire to live knowing that a five year old who was born at 23 weeks is now a 5 year old? And in addition to your conclusion that prior to 22 weeks that the unborn had no desire to live you acknowledged that you also find them to be of no value if you contemplated your views and it was just you and your own conscience would your conclusions as to what the unborn prior to 22 weeks meant to you be reflective of your own sense of value or do you just ascribe these feelings to the unborn prior to 22 weeks. If you have no objective proof to any assumptions ascribed to the unborn prior to 22 weeks would you be enough of a reasoning adult to admit that your assumptions could possibly be wrong or are you content to continue using subjective reasoning to influence the lives and destinies of unborn children. If you would like to give more lengthy answers I guess I’ll have to muddle through them. One more question just came to mind do you think your general feeling of malaise about the pre-born prior to 22 weeks is reflective of your own self worth or do you feel really good about yourself and your feelings of malaise are just attributed to those like the unborn prior to 22 weeks who have not yet had the opportunity to verbablly voice their opinion. The more questions I write the more I have. Do you think in your opinion that if the pre-born prior to 22 weeks of gestation were able to communicate his or her desire to live in your opinion do you think that would make a difference in your characterization of them? And as an American citizen, do you believe to some degree we have all failed the weakest among us. Forgive me if some of the questions are repetitive.
Holy Gamoley, Myrtle, what happened to “Keep it simple and the gift of gab,” etc.? ; )
Seriously no problem – but your first few sentences lost me. Let me know what I’m missing. I do acknowledge my beliefs (and those of others). Yes, most unborn babies will make to 5 years old and older if not aborted. My own sense of value – there are relationships to other people, on an individual basis, family basis, societal basis, etc. Had I not been born, those would have never happened. My mom had 4 kids, and no more. If she’d had 5 or 6 then things would be different, same as if she’d had none, and throughout all those possibilities I don’t see that society really needed things to be a certain way, or any different.
I don’t feel “a malaise” about the unborn to 22 weeks, nor about the unborn in general. Not saying “they are bad,” or “they are guilty.” Of course not – there is no capacity for guilt in the first place. What I am saying is that as a society we do not need every given woman to have a certain number of kids, or, case-by-case, even any kids at all. With that in mind, I’m comfortable having abortion be legal to a time in gestation, as it is in most states.
I don’t think we “have failed the weakest among us” as far as abortion. They (unborn babies with no emotion, no awareness at all) don’t care. The caring is on the part of the woman or couple, and other people, whether directly known to the mother or not. As a society I think we do need to allow freedom, unless there is a good enough reason to restrict it (and of course I know that pro-lifers consider the life of the unborn as being a good enough reason to ban abortion), and that as a society we do not need every single pregnancy continued to term. I think it would be better to prevent unwanted pregnancies rather than end them by abortion, but once a pregnancy is fact, then of course prevention is no longer an option.
Doug: “The points are straight out of the anti-choice playbook of reasons not to have an abortion.” Personally – again – I’m fine with the anti-coercion message and the mention of adoptive parents paying fees. It’s the subjective stuff, which is indeed obviously coming from an anti-choice point of view, that I’m saying should go.”
You’re really not thinking this through very well at all. It’s not anti-choice to communicate anything at all to the woman. It’s impossible to be anti-choice so long as the woman actually HAS a choice. I suppose if someone lied to her and said abortion was illegal, or abortion gives you cooties, that would be anti-choice.
It’s not in the least anti-choice to try to persuade a woman — honestly — not to have an abortion.
“Cool – if we’re leaving out the subjective “pro-choice” as well as the “pro-life” spin, then all’s well IMO. I guess the question is when it does become an intrusion on the woman’s choice and when is it, on balance, an effort to portray a subjective agenda in the guise of “state regulations” or the like.”
Doesn’t matter. Trying to persuade — even via “subjective” whatever — does not compromise a woman’s choice. It can change her mind and it STILL doesn’t contravene her authentic choice.
Seriously, why is this such a mystery to you? Have you never really thought about this amazingly obvious thing?
“Being for the legal choice of abortion (or for the legal choice of continuing a pregnancy, for that matter) does not mean that one will necessarily prefer that a given choice be made, especially in all circumstances. Or, supporting legal abortion does not mean that a given pro-choicer “likes” abortion or wants women to choose abortions, per se.”
But when a pro-choicer imagines that changing a woman’s mind contravene’s choice, neither is THAT “pro-choice.” Not in the least. It might be pro-“don’t persuade people of things!” or somesuch, but that has nothing to do with the fundamental pro-choice commitment. Nothing.
Right? I want to hear you say it, or this conversation isn’t really complete.
If you persuade your kid not to do something bad they were intending, usually you say something like “Good choice, lad!” to affirm their decision. Their decision. Or is that a lie?
Ninek: If you don’t know the real risks, but you keep insisting that abortion is safer than birth, then you clearly are not a wishful-thinking-liar, but you are a malicious liar.
I’m not the one who’s lying.
The CDC statistics I’ve seen show a mortality rate of 7.1 deaths per 100,000 births. For abortions before 9 weeks, 0.1 deaths per 100,000 abortions. It’s no secret that early-term abortions are safer than later-term ones. Late enough in gestation and the risk with abortion increases, to finally actually being more than the rate for giving birth.
It’s noted that those statistics count deaths associated with abortion, not just those attributed to abortion, and that they include significantly more abortion-related deaths than are reported on death certificates. I hear you that not everything is reported or ascribed to abortion (although that could apply to giving birth as well). Anyway, the statistics already take some of that into account, i.e. they are not only deaths directly attributed to having an abortion.
My point is also that even if you maintain there is still a significant under-reporting of deaths due to abortion, there is so much room for error that nothing is changed, in the end, with respect to the overall greater safety of early-term abortion. If we hypothesize that in reality there are actually *ten times* as many deaths due to having an abortion earlier than 9 weeks, then, rather than it being that those abortions are “71 times safer than carrying to term and giving birth,” they are only “7.1 times safer.”
Rasqual: You’re really not thinking this through very well at all. It’s not anti-choice to communicate anything at all to the woman.
Not true – it most certainly can be anti-choice, i.e. when the speaker is “against the legal choice of abortion,” and attempts to sway the woman away from having a wanted abortion on the basis of things that are subjective to the anti-choicer. There are pro-choice things and anti-choice things that are communicated all the time, to women, to men, just stated here on this forum, etc.
Saying, in effect, “You should not have an abortion because the unborn are children,” is an anti-choice or pro-life sentiment. Not trying to sound “mean” by using “anti-choice,” but the fact is that here the speaker is against the choice of legal abortion, because of their own opinion about the unborn, rather than anything that necessarily applies to the pregnant woman. And that is the objection – while her right to not be coerced is law, in no way is it the same thing for “child” or “not a child.”
____
Trying to persuade — even via “subjective” whatever — does not compromise a woman’s choice.
Agreed that it does not magically “flip a switch,” and that the decision is still up to the woman. It’s not like she’s magically physically compelled at that point. But that was not what the claim was. Yet again – what is being objected to in this thread is that “trying to persuade,” when it’s propaganda masquerading as external fact or gov’t regulation.
It would be the same if there had to be posters in all gynecologists’ offices stating the risk of dying in childbirth, or that, “you have the right to have an abortion up to X weeks’ gestation,” or even that “It is unlawful for anyone to coerce you into not having an abortion, if you want one.” And – that’s with the last one being fact, not just propaganda. Still, for women with wanted pregnancies, is that really necessary? I say no – if they want to find out the risks, they can ask, research it themselves, etc. These are mostly women with wanted pregnancies – I say leave ’em alone, in that respect, and again – this is without it even being propaganda. Easy to see similar objections when something *is* propaganda.
_____
“Being for the legal choice of abortion (or for the legal choice of continuing a pregnancy, for that matter) does not mean that one will necessarily prefer that a given choice be made, especially in all circumstances. Or, supporting legal abortion does not mean that a given pro-choicer “likes” abortion or wants women to choose abortions, per se.”
But when a pro-choicer imagines that changing a woman’s mind contravene’s choice, neither is THAT “pro-choice.” Not in the least. It might be pro-”don’t persuade people of things!” or somesuch, but that has nothing to do with the fundamental pro-choice commitment. Nothing.
Right? I want to hear you say it, or this conversation isn’t really complete.
It’s not “changing a woman’s mind” that is being objected to. It’s the attempted insertion of subjective opinion, the motivation being from pro-life or anti-choice sentiment. Just the same – if it was state regulation that it had to be posted that “It’s not a baby,” then of course pro-lifer’s would be objecting, and for the same reasons. And you could still say the same thing – “that the choice is not really compromised.” The objection to propaganda, as in so many of the above posts, and as with the Louisiana posters, remains the same.
Sorry, Rasqual, I missed this:
If you persuade your kid not to do something bad they were intending, usually you say something like “Good choice, lad!” to affirm their decision. Their decision. Or is that a lie?
No, that’s true. Your premise, however, is that the thing was “bad” in the beginning, and of course with the abortion debate there is no such agreement.
Perhaps the boy was thinking of using drugs or driving drunk. So you say “Good choice” when it’s not done. Quite understandable, and I agree.
For posters to be in schools saying, in effect, “Using drugs and driving drunk can have bad consequences,” is one thing.
For posters to be in schools, mandated by the state, saying, “Dancing is evil because it’s the Devil’s playground” – that I’d object to.
Regarding abortion being “safer” than childbirth, even COMPLICATIONS are self-reported (self being the clinic workers/abortionists). In an industry with little to no regulation or oversight, how can the public be assured these are accurate? See video at the bottom of the post, please.
There are two problems with reporting of abortion deaths. First, the coding system requirements themselves (WHO & CDC): From False Abortion Statistics Exposed
“WHO’s coding rule no. 12, together with its recommendation no. 7, states that deaths due to medical and surgical treatment must be reported under the complication of the procedure and not under the condition or reason for treatment. In effect, this makes abortion a “ghost” category under which it is impossible to code a death. Medical coders have, in fact, relayed that any attempt to code a death due to abortion under an abortion category yields a “reject message” from the computer programs provided by the National Centre for Health Statistics of Washington D.C., a division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia. (This computer program is now used in Spain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, and will be introduced in the British Isles this January.) These computer programs simply incorporate the same problematic coding rules already used throughout the world. Only a minute number of abortion-related deaths actually qualify to be declared under abortion, i.e. those for which the medical certificate of death categorically and unequivocally gives abortion as the underlying cause of death. If abortion is mentioned anywhere else on the death certificate, on the underlying cause line, the death gets coded as an accident of some kind, a sudden or unexpected death, an illness (like septicaemia—blood poisoning) or an injury, etc.”
How does this play out in real life? Take a look at these cases in MD:
“On March 1, 1989, Erica Richardson, a sixteen-year-old Maryland resident, bled to death from a uterine perforation only hours after undergoing an abortion. During the next five months, two other residents of Maryland, Gladys Estanislao and Debra Gray, also died from abortion complications. Surprisingly, none of these women were ever granted the smallest of recognitions-becoming a statistic. The official statistics issued by Maryland public health officials showed that there were no deaths from abortion in 1989. Indeed, Maryland only reported a single abortion-related death for the entire decade of 1980 to 1989. Actually, there was a fourth woman who died as a result of a 1989 abortion in Maryland. In this case, Susanne Logan fell into a coma during her abortion and awoke four months later as a quadriplegic, unable to talk. She survived for three years, dying in 1992 at the age of twenty-four. Since Susanne’s death did not occur within forty-five days of her abortion, it has not been counted in any of the official abortion mortality statistics.
These four deaths occurred in one small state. For that same year, 1989, the Abortion Surveillance Unit of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported only twelve abortion-related deaths for the entire country. But, as we will see, the CDC lacks any regular and systematic means of identifying abortion-related deaths.
Source
The second problem lies in the nature of clinics reporting abortion complications. Listen to former abortion industry workers & clinic directors talk about this:
Abortion The Inside Story Particularly @ 1:50
klynn73 – valid points, but how does that actually reflect on very early-term abortions (now commonly medicinal rather than surgical)? There is still the common thread of early abortions being much, much safer than late-term abortions, and I’ve already stated that late enough in gestation having an abortion is in general more risky than giving birth. Your own links include doctors mentioning just how much greater the risk is as the weeks of gestation increase.
I’ve seen the “Maryland” cases mentioned before – this state and that year are often “cherry-picked” by pro-lifers for mention. Okay, there may be something to that, as far as abortion as a whole is concerned, but again – were any of those cases of pregnancies being ended early in gestation? And was it in any way similar in other states and other years? And, even if we are to say they were, would it make any substantive difference? There is so much room in the statistics that the deaths attributed could be twice, three times as high, and early-term abortions would still be much safer than giving birth. It could be ten times, twenty times, and the same deal.
Doug, you didn’t even address the fact that coders specifically mention the INABILITY to code a death due to abortion. “Pulmonary embolism” or “Septicemia” don’t really tell the whole story, do they? The Maryland cases show how easy it is to disprove the “official” reports. If you’ve heard of them before, it’s (at least, in part) because I have posted them here previously.
I am not denying the risks to the mother increase the more developed her child (fetus/offspring/progeny/whatever you choose to call the unborn human being) is, particularly as the tiny skeleton calcifies, the possibility of a bone shard of the dismembered human’s skeleton perforating her uterus or lacerating her cervix exists. There’s even documentation of a woman in Pakistan who had aborted at 16 weeks and had her unborn child’s bones in her bladder wall for 7 years before they discovered their “iatrogenic introduction”.
My point was that the statistics you refer to are flawed. What do you think about the providers themselves explaining how they (and I quote) “GUESS” at complications? I always say it is not wise to expect ethical behavior from those who make a living making a killing. The same group who fabricated pre-Roe deaths hide behind the euphemism of “choice” while attacking the choice of life in litigation against CPCs/PRCs. This group has a vested (read $$$) interest in proclaiming, regardless of the maternal body count (collateral damage and all that–abortion über alles!) that the court ruling of Roe v. Wade has somehow made a “medical procedure” safe.
New York City stats, 1987, from Abortion Facts :
In 1987, the New York City Commissioner of Health wrote a letter to abortion clinics warning them to be careful about using too much anesthesia. The letter stated:
During the period between 1981 and 1984, there were 30 legal abortion-related deaths in New York City.[177]
* For the same time period, the CDC’s Division of Reproductive Health reported a total of 42 legal abortion-related deaths in the United States.[178]
* If both of these numbers are accurate, it would mean that 71% of the legal abortion-related deaths in the United States occurred in one city where about 3% of the population lived.[179]
You might want to take a gander at the rest of the section labeled Women’s Health. That vested interest I was talking about in a previous post?
A 2002 national survey of physicians found that 98% think the reporting of medical practice errors is obstructed due to fear of lawsuits.[158]
klynn73: Doug, you didn’t even address the fact that coders specifically mention the INABILITY to code a death due to abortion. “Pulmonary embolism” or “Septicemia” don’t really tell the whole story, do they?
Okay, and do those have any realistic and make-any-type-of-real difference application to early-term abortions? Are there really deaths occurring due to early abortions, especially ones where it’s just a case of medicine being taken? Are there in any way enough to make up the huge gap? I agree that you may have a point – the degree to which it changes things, if any, is a question.
____
My point was that the statistics you refer to are flawed. What do you think about the providers themselves explaining how they (and I quote) “GUESS” at complications?
The point remains that even a “massive flaw” in the statistics could leave us with the same conclusion – that early-term abortions are still not only darn safe, but much, much safer than carrying to term and giving birth.
____
The same group who fabricated pre-Roe deaths hide behind the euphemism of “choice” while attacking the choice of life in litigation against CPCs/PRCs. This group has a vested (read $$$) interest in proclaiming, regardless of the maternal body count (collateral damage and all that–abortion über alles!) that the court ruling of Roe v. Wade has somehow made a “medical procedure” safe.
Do we have any real reason to think the maternal body count from early-term abortions meaningfully alters the truth of what I’ve been saying? A few anecdotes and isolated cases don’t really prove anything in the big picture, here, with respect to early-term abortions.
As for Roe making abortion a safe medical procedure – do you really think the average abortion carried less risk to the woman before Roe?
Doug
If you don’t mind could you come up with a theory why the 22 week old pre-born is basically nothing or has no desire to live doesn’t feel pain all that other good stuff you believe because it’s hard to refute anything that isn’t based in fact. If you don’t mind could you do that because what your doing reminds me of the time my son was in the hospital and he went in for chemo therapy and because I’m not sure why all the facts showed that Downs Syndrome children were more sensitive to I think it’s called leukovorine. Anyway they had protocol and everything but they just I don’t know decided to ignore it and sent him home. Well it wasn’t long before he just wasn’t even able to chew his food and I knew something was wrong. He doesn’t talk to much and talked even less than so I knew something was wrong. Anyway the RN comes in to do her weekly visit because he was really sick and I expressed my concerns to her and she said “Oh Myrtle he has mucositis and it’s very painful you need to bring him to the E.R.”so I did and they admitted him and started him on a morphine drip that’s how much pain he was in. They knew he was in a great deal of pain not because he could express his pain but because they knew a lot about mucositis. Imagine that even though he wasn’t about to verbally express himself the science let them know exactly what he had. So we went home and I guess about a week or two later he had an appointment with his oncologist. So even though I was not a very happy camper knowing that they knew so much but allowed him unnecessary suffering I managed to express my disappointment upon which she replied “Oh Myrtle your being subjective”, and because she had a degree I thought maybe she’s right but then remembered the difference between subjective and objective and said No two doctors and one nurse confirmed that is was mucositis so I’m sure that’s what he had. So next time they were more careful. Anyway had it not been confirmed by medical professionals I would have had no way to conclude that it was she that was wrong and not me. So that’s why I would like you to set forth a theory why you believe before 22 weeks the unborn are incapable of feeling pain or compose a theory why its o.k. to kill them but just objective stuff so I can check to see if your right or wrong. So if your theory is that before 22 weeks of gestation the 22 week old has no desire to live try to prove it. Then I can get the opinions of experts and I will be able to conclude if your right or wrong. Thanks.
Doug: Not true – it most certainly can be anti-choice, i.e. when the speaker is “against the legal choice of abortion,” and attempts to sway the woman away from having a wanted abortion on the basis of things that are subjective to the anti-choicer. There are pro-choice things and anti-choice things that are communicated all the time, to women, to men, just stated here on this forum, etc.
Why would persuading someone not to have an abortion be at all contrary to pro-choice? Pro-choice, as we’ve agreed, is the belief that a woman should have a legal right to an abortion if that’s what she chooses. Whether it’s what she chooses to do is not in the least — NOT IN THE LEAST — a concern of the pro-choice ethic. Furthermore, apart from dishonest persuasion, persuading her one way or the other cannot be IN THE LEAST antithetical to a pro-choice ethic.
I think you’re subconsciously imagining that pro-choice and pro-life are opposites. They’re not. Not in the least. They’re utterly incommensurate, in fact. Oh they deny some of each others’ propositions, but fundamentally they’re concerned with wholly different propositions. Thus, telling a woman that she should not abort her child because it’s a precious life that she ought to nurture, is not in the least “anti-choice.” Not even close — and arguing the contrary will be an argument you’ll lose. This is because pro-choice is concerned with the rights a woman has. Period. And nothing about a woman’s right to have an abortion is in the least compromised by persuasion — including persuasion to the contrary of an original intent to abort.
She still has that right, and her choice remains authentic. In fact, she remains aware of this right and the authenticity of her choice in changing her mind. You cannot change your mind if you’re not free to do so.
Are you actually unaware that this isn’t an argument you can possibly win? ;-)
Saying, in effect, “You should not have an abortion because the unborn are children,” is an anti-choice or pro-life sentiment.
See that’s the problem, you’re imagining that pro-life assertions about the child and pro-choice views of women’s rights are opposites. They’re not. Why on earth would you think they were?
This really is the first time you’ve been faced with this rational issue?
the speaker is against the choice of legal abortion
So? How does that make any difference at all in whether the final choice is authentically the woman’s?
I’m not going to let you go until you understand that there’s no hope for what you seem to be thinking. There’s no rational refuge for you anywhere here.
No, that’s true. Your premise, however, is that the thing was ‘bad’ in the beginning, and of course with the abortion debate there is no such agreement.
We’re not arguing what’s actually the case — that’d be a matter of impasse between us. We seem to be arguing whether something is, or is not, an authentic choice in the case that someone has been persuaded to change their mind about a thing.
The point of the analogy was to illustrate that the most natural thing in the world when persuading a child, is to speak of their new decision as a “good choice.” And we don’t say that as one of those motivational fibs parents sometimes resort to — paternal “spin” of one kind or another. We actually mean it. Indeed, we’re proud that the kid actually made that choice.
There’s just no way you can win this argument if you believe in free will at all — whether compatibilist or non-compatibilist. Your only resort is to point to cases of persuasion that are deceptive. Understanding that, I’ve already narrowed the scope of interest to honest persuasion.
I understand the concern with dishonest coercion. But you’ve gone further than that and imagined that even “subjective” efforts to dissuade from abortion are somehow “ant-choice.” They’re not — in the least. I’ll leave you with this — such suasion is not anti-choice — but pro-choice people are anti-suasion if that suasion is pro-life. Meanwhile, much pro-choice suasion turns out to be anti-life. It’s an odd asymmetry — but it’s real when we respect precisely the self-definitions of each side (and when we realize they’re not conceptual opposites).
Would that more pro-choice people were genuinely pro-life. But that’s an unstable isotope.
klynn
It’s not enough to know what the numbers are saying, I think there should be a way for women who don’t go to pro-life sites to be able to see the numbers for themselves, then they can make up their own mind. And because the current administration is suppose to be pro-health and pro-women , which I do believe to some extent they actually are but, just not pro-life they should be challenged to make the statistics available to women so they can make an informed decision. And there are pro-lifers in both the republican and democratic party who might be afraid to let their voices be heard, because they will be made to look as if they are anti-woman, with the statistics in front of them that might actually give them the courage to fight for women. What are your thoughts.
Kel: How about we just tell them “Hey, kill your kid now, so that way you won’t risk prison time killing your kid after birth.” Hooray for society’s mental disconnects! Right?
Well there you go, Kel – you wouldn’t be happy about that, just as a certain amount of “spin” in the Louisiana clinics has garnered some objections too.
Wow, Doug, you are getting really great at missing the point entirely.
The point, Doug, is that informing women that killing their children earlier would bring less risk to them is as absurd with the scenario I mentioned. You’re still killing humans – you’re just doing it earlier to ease your own conscience and to avoid being prosecuted.
What “spin” are you referring to?
Follow-up for Doug’s morning reading:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pro-choice
“favoring the legalization of abortion”
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pro-choice
“supporting or advocating legalized abortion”
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pro-choice
“Favoring or supporting the legal right of women and girls to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy to term”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-choice
Not a word about persuasion or changing people’s minds, Doug. Not. A. Word.
So what I want to know is why people whose fundamental philosophy — “pro-choice” — are so anxious to go further than their putative pro-choice ethic requires them to go, and imagine that the pro-choice view of things is under assault or compromised when people try to persuade women not to have abortions.
It’s difficult, Doug, to reach any conclusion other than that you want women to have abortions. Right? Because if that’s what their current plans are, it’s “anti-choice” to try to persuade them otherwise, right?
But can you apply a categorical imperative to this bizarre view, Doug? Do you not advise your children, friends, or co-workers about things — on the grounds that you’d be violating their “freedom to choose?” No, of course you don’t. Because you’re not stupid. Except on the topic of abortion, where by some mysterious voodoo, “choice” suddenly has to mean something entirely different. And let’s face it, the only reason it’s different is because it seems like a war with yahoos on the other side and they can’t be given any quarter. And granting the legitimacy of persuasion would give them an edge in this ideological war.
What led to their “original” choice, Doug? How do you know that half the choices to abort weren’t on account of the woman hearing some “subjective” stuff which, on your view, no one should have told her? How do you know that half the choices to carry to term weren’t on account of the woman hearing some “subjective” stuff which, on your view, no one should have told her? You don’t. If you DID know, would you seek to undo the “damage” by apprising her of the fact that she was (gasp!) persuaded and she should revert to her earlier plans? But you can’t know, so you’re relieved of the burden of pondering THAT reductio. And since you can’t know, neither can you verify that her current choice is “authentic” by the standards your entire conversation seems to have assumed. You simply don’t know. Which means that you can’t claim that persuasion NOW in any way renders her choices inauthentic. The persuasion might be clearing her mind of prior confusion. Or it could be confusing her where her mind was clear. How do you know, Doug? You don’t.
But there’s one thing you can know. When she finally does choose, whether persuasion was present or not, it’s her choice. It’s her legal choice. It’s her pro-choice because that’s the law of the land — not because she was free from persuasive voices.
But don’t ever let me hear from some hypocritical pro-choicer who mouths the “safe, legal and rare” mantra that they’re sincere about the “rare” thing unless they’re willing, themselves, to advise women against abortion and respect unborn life as much as possible. Because if they’re going to be hypocrites, they’re also going to be tagged as pro-abortion and anti-life — and that tag will have been earned.
Are there really deaths occurring due to early abortions, especially ones where it’s just a case of medicine being taken?
Yes.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2006/03/ru_486_deaths.html
Doug
Because you mentioned the 22 week marker I attempted to find a pre-born who had made it to the 22 week point of gestation and survived outside of the womb and not only was able to find that but also seen a video of a baby who was conceived (?) by IVF who was only 21 weeks old and made it. Her mom actually deceived the doctor into believing she was further along than she was so that they would make an attempt to save her baby. Had they known the real age of the baby no attempt would have been made. Go to U tube and see for yourself all of the miracles. One baby was born only 15 weeks early but she weighed I want to say 15 ounces and to see the faith of her parents even before the video ended I suspected she would make it because you could see the love of the parents. Incredible love and tenacity to fight for their baby. When you try to convince people of what the 22 week pre-born does not have I want you to remember the power of words and the harm they can cause. And then I want you to remember the love that these pre-borns have an inheritant right too and if your words do not affirm their right please don’t use your words to take that right away. In the future when you post something that I know you know to be false I will just post, what are you doing with your words today. Not only admonishing you but reminding myself also of the power of words to heal and/or to hurt. God bless you and yours with the grace of love.
Jack
Have you thought about donating one of your kidneys? The difference that a healthy kidney makes for a person who needs one is wonderful. Of course before even considering that you should make sure you are in good health and that you can give a kidney.
Myrtle, I have thought about it. I give blood a lot, because they need O neg blood so much. I don’t know if I can donate a kidney, because I don’t have a spleen and I am supposed to avoid elective surgery. But it is a good thought.
Jack
For you it’s not a good idea. I don’t think so anyway, the reason why they tell you to avoid elective surgery probably is because your more prone to infection. I read that the spleen is a reservoir for blood so should you ever lose a lot of blood the spleen is what helps by coming to the rescue. But they say not to have one is not a big deal. I wonder how safe it is for you to donate blood often. You should really read up on the function of the spleen and/or talk to your physician to make sure it’s safe to be giving blood often. It’s good to help people but you want to take good care of yourself also. I just read a little but because the spleen has so much to do with the blood it’s probably a very good thing that you donate often or a very bad thing. The funniest thing happened while researching the spleen it interposes the bloodstream so I googled the word interpose and ran across the song Come Thy Fount of Every Blessing which just really blessed my spirit. That’s what happens when you try to bless someone you get blessed in the process.
If you don’t mind could you come up with a theory why the 22 week old pre-born is basically nothing or has no desire to live doesn’t feel pain all that other good stuff you believe because it’s hard to refute anything that isn’t based in fact.
Myrtle, sorry for the delay in replying – was driving and working a lot the past three days.
I’m not saying, “basically nothing.” For all I know, it’s a wanted pregnancy and the mom & dad want to have a baby like crazy.
There is a point when the unborn become sensate, when they get mental awareness, etc. – most fetuses – the ones that develop normally or near enough. I’m saying the zygote, blastocyst, embryo don’t have that awareness, can’t feel. In the fetus stage, there will be a continuum of development, leading to when (usually) all five of the senses are there, there is emotion, personality, etc. Somewhere in-between is the point when I’m saying “awareness” develops. 22 weeks isn’t the total end of the debate for me. Viability factors in there too.
As for detecting emotion, pain response, etc., late enough in gestation there are brain waves present in the fetus. Not just electrical activity, but the organized patterns of electrical activity that we can easily detect in born people, newborn babies, and the fetus itself too. For many decades we’ve been able to detect them. If they’re there, they’re there, and if not, then not.
Doug: Not true – it most certainly can be anti-choice, i.e. when the speaker is “against the legal choice of abortion,” and attempts to sway the woman away from having a wanted abortion on the basis of things that are subjective to the anti-choicer. There are pro-choice things and anti-choice things that are communicated all the time, to women, to men, just stated here on this forum, etc.
Rasqual: Why would persuading someone not to have an abortion be at all contrary to pro-choice? Pro-choice, as we’ve agreed, is the belief that a woman should have a legal right to an abortion if that’s what she chooses. Whether it’s what she chooses to do is not in the least — NOT IN THE LEAST — a concern of the pro-choice ethic. Furthermore, apart from dishonest persuasion, persuading her one way or the other cannot be IN THE LEAST antithetical to a pro-choice ethic.
Persuading someone not to have an abortion, or to have one, for that matter, can reflect being anti-choice. Either way – continue the pregnancy or end it – if the speaker does not want the pregnant woman to choose one of them, then that is being anti-choice. I agree that “the pro-choice ethic” isn’t concerned with what the individual choice is. However, somebody who is anti-choice will definitely not want one option being chosen.
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I think you’re subconsciously imagining that pro-choice and pro-life are opposites. They’re not. Not in the least. They’re utterly incommensurate, in fact. Oh they deny some of each others’ propositions, but fundamentally they’re concerned with wholly different propositions. Thus, telling a woman that she should not abort her child because it’s a precious life that she ought to nurture, is not in the least “anti-choice.” Not even close — and arguing the contrary will be an argument you’ll lose. This is because pro-choice is concerned with the rights a woman has. Period. And nothing about a woman’s right to have an abortion is in the least compromised by persuasion — including persuasion to the contrary of an original intent to abort.
You’re over-simplifying things. Agreed that telling the pregnant woman it’s a “child” would not have to be truly anti-choice, if the speaker still favors the woman having the legal right to choose, either way. That may not be the case, though, with the exact same thing being said. Or, the speaker could be saying, “You should have an abortion because there are so many people that we’re killing the planet.” No, she doesn’t physically compel the woman to have an abortion, by saying that, nor does her saying that, alone, mean that the woman’s legal choice is taken away that instant. Yet it most certainly can be because the speaker is anti-choice. In the case of the Louisiana gov’t getting involved, it’s pretty obvious that not all the people with the motivation to engage in the “spin” there are in favor of the woman’s choice remaining legal as it is now.
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She still has that right, and her choice remains authentic. In fact, she remains aware of this right and the authenticity of her choice in changing her mind. You cannot change your mind if you’re not free to do so.
And if every person that ever said, “abortion should not be because it’s a baby,” or “because it’s a child,” etc., was in favor of the choice of abortion remaining legal, then you’d have a case. Of course that is not the way things are.
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Are you actually unaware that this isn’t an argument you can possibly win? ;-)
I’m aware that you are mischaracterising things. Sometimes, the propaganda and personal belief stated as fact means that the speaker is indeed against the legal choice of abortion.
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Saying, in effect, “You should not have an abortion because the unborn are children,” is an anti-choice or pro-life sentiment.
See that’s the problem, you’re imagining that pro-life assertions about the child and pro-choice views of women’s rights are opposites. They’re not. Why on earth would you think they were?
That really doesn’t matter. What matters is whether the speaker is for the choice or against it. The only way that what you are saying could be always true is if nobody that ever said the stuff we’re talking about was against the legal choice of abortion.
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This really is the first time you’ve been faced with this rational issue?
It’s the first time I’ve seen anybody make the specific argument you are, sure.
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the speaker is against the choice of legal abortion
So? How does that make any difference at all in whether the final choice is authentically the woman’s?
That too really doesn’t matter. Granted that at the current time the legal choice of abortion is there. In no way does that mean there are not anti-choice people who say the things we are talking about.
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I’m not going to let you go until you understand that there’s no hope for what you seem to be thinking. There’s no rational refuge for you anywhere here.
I’m the one seeing both cases. Granted, there is the one you propose, but in no way is that the only one. It is the presence of the other – anti-choice people who would use propaganda – that is why the objections to some of the statements for the Louisiana clinics exist. If nobody was really anti-choice, and just giving their opinions, then all fine and good. The flipside would be statements posted in the clinic that “It’s not a child until it’s born,” or “there is already tremendous population pressure on our earth….” Even by your logic in this thread, would you approve of them being there?
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No, that’s true. Your premise, however, is that the thing was ‘bad’ in the beginning, and of course with the abortion debate there is no such agreement.
We’re not arguing what’s actually the case — that’d be a matter of impasse between us. We seem to be arguing whether something is, or is not, an authentic choice in the case that someone has been persuaded to change their mind about a thing.
No, not that “someone has been persuaded.” The objection to the subjective stuff in the Louisiana clinics is that they reflect anti-choice sentiment. In one given case of “someone was persuaded,” then agreed that the persuader might have been pro-choice, or might not have been.
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The point of the analogy was to illustrate that the most natural thing in the world when persuading a child, is to speak of their new decision as a “good choice.” And we don’t say that as one of those motivational fibs parents sometimes resort to — paternal “spin” of one kind or another. We actually mean it. Indeed, we’re proud that the kid actually made that choice.
There’s just no way you can win this argument if you believe in free will at all — whether compatibilist or non-compatibilist. Your only resort is to point to cases of persuasion that are deceptive. Understanding that, I’ve already narrowed the scope of interest to honest persuasion.
I understand the concern with dishonest coercion. But you’ve gone further than that and imagined that even “subjective” efforts to dissuade from abortion are somehow “ant-choice.” They’re not — in the least.
As an aside – lately I’ve been seeing some stuff that does make me wonder about free will, if we truly have it, or the nature of what it really is.
I see what you mean, and yes, it *could* be that way. My point is that often, it won’t be – that what we’re talking about would be advocated by people who most certainly are against the legal choice of abortion. It’s that it’s not honest to have opinion masquerading as fact that has resulted in the objections to the LA postings. If it was really just presenting facts, then I don’t think there would be the objections, and I wouldn’t be arguing with you.
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I’ll leave you with this — such suasion is not anti-choice — but pro-choice people are anti-suasion if that suasion is pro-life. Meanwhile, much pro-choice suasion turns out to be anti-life.
Hey – if somebody is against people continuing pregnancies, or against a given woman having a baby, then they are *not* pro-choice, or at least not in the given case. Pro-lifers would be objecting if stuff that was truly “anti-life” was posted, and that too would not be the result of pro-choice sentiment.
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It’s an odd asymmetry — but it’s real when we respect precisely the self-definitions of each side (and when we realize they’re not conceptual opposites).
Well there you go – if the Louisiana stuff stuck to facts, and didn’t include some “spin” (subjective definitions) then the objections would not be there, or at least make no sense from a pro-choice perspective.
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Would that more pro-choice people were genuinely pro-life. But that’s an unstable isotope.
I see pro-chioce as being neutral, letting the woman make her own best choice. Being for or against her continuing the pregnancy , or having an abortion, is not being truly pro-choice. It’s having one’s own agenda on which way things should go.
Kel: How about we just tell them “Hey, kill your kid now, so that way you won’t risk prison time killing your kid after birth.” Hooray for society’s mental disconnects! Right?
Well there you go, Kel – you wouldn’t be happy about that, just as a certain amount of “spin” in the Louisiana clinics has garnered some objections too.
Wow, Doug, you are getting really great at missing the point entirely.
No, I think that *is* the point – you would not like that to be posted. Likewise, pro-choicers are not going to like things presented as fact when in reality it’s pro-life (or anti-choice) sentiment/opinion. Saying “it’s a child” or “it’s not a child” are opinions.
Myrtle: Because you mentioned the 22 week marker I attempted to find a pre-born who had made it to the 22 week point of gestation and survived outside of the womb and not only was able to find that but also seen a video of a baby who was conceived (?) by IVF who was only 21 weeks old and made it. Her mom actually deceived the doctor into believing she was further along than she was so that they would make an attempt to save her baby. Had they known the real age of the baby no attempt would have been made. Go to U tube and see for yourself all of the miracles. One baby was born only 15 weeks early but she weighed I want to say 15 ounces and to see the faith of her parents even before the video ended I suspected she would make it because you could see the love of the parents. Incredible love and tenacity to fight for their baby.
Myrtle, yeah – I’ve heard of that case – I think the girl was 21 weeks, 6 days at birth.
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When you try to convince people of what the 22 week pre-born does not have I want you to remember the power of words and the harm they can cause. And then I want you to remember the love that these pre-borns have an inheritant right too and if your words do not affirm their right please don’t use your words to take that right away. In the future when you post something that I know you know to be false I will just post, what are you doing with your words today. Not only admonishing you but reminding myself also of the power of words to heal and/or to hurt. God bless you and yours with the grace of love.
Myrtle, you are talking about several different things. Again – if the woman or the parents want the baby, then in no way am I saying they should not continue the pregnancy. I’ve picked 22 weeks because that’s well before what is now the point of viability. Yes, the one baby did live, but even at 23 weeks most babies will not survive. In the US, the point of viability has been coming down, and I’d say it’s now between 24 weeks and 23, if we’re talking about a top-rank hospital for preemies.
You state “inherent right” but you cannot prove any such thing. You have your beliefs – all fine and good – and I’m not saying that’s bad. But the pregnant woman or the couple that is involved may feel differently, and I support them being able to end the pregnancy if they wish. I’m not saying that they “should” disagree with you, but they may.
Rasqual: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pro-choice
“favoring the legalization of abortion” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pro-choice
“supporting or advocating legalized abortion” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/pro-choice
“Favoring or supporting the legal right of women and girls to choose whether or not to continue a pregnancy to term” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro-choice
Not a word about persuasion or changing people’s minds, Doug. Not. A. Word.
So what? The point is that people who are, by definition, not “pro-choice,” can and do support the propaganda and opinion-masquearading-as-fact that we sometimes see, and that for a gov’t to mandate it will result in people objecting to it.
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So what I want to know is why people whose fundamental philosophy — “pro-choice” — are so anxious to go further than their putative pro-choice ethic requires them to go, and imagine that the pro-choice view of things is under assault or compromised when people try to persuade women not to have abortions.
Again, there is no way to make correct blanket statements about it. While it’s possible that somebody who is not against the legal choice of abortion could do the persuasion as you propose, it’s also true that often it results from a truly anti-choice stance.
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It’s difficult, Doug, to reach any conclusion other than that you want women to have abortions. Right? Because if that’s what their current plans are, it’s “anti-choice” to try to persuade them otherwise, right?
It can be, sure – it often is. Such persuasion is often the result of the speaker being anti-choice. Same for somebody talking to a woman with a wanted pregnancy, trying to persuade her to have an abortion, not on the basis of external facts, but on the basis of the speaker’s druthers.
I really am pro-choice. If nobody wanted to have an abortion, that would be fine with me.
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But can you apply a categorical imperative to this bizarre view, Doug? Do you not advise your children, friends, or co-workers about things — on the grounds that you’d be violating their “freedom to choose?” No, of course you don’t. Because you’re not stupid. Except on the topic of abortion, where by some mysterious voodoo, “choice” suddenly has to mean something entirely different. And let’s face it, the only reason it’s different is because it seems like a war with yahoos on the other side and they can’t be given any quarter. And granting the legitimacy of persuasion would give them an edge in this ideological war.
I do advise them, at times, sure, but my motivation is not that I’m against them having the legal choice. Meanwhile, there really is no “advising” on whether the unborn are “children” or not. There will be the speaker’s opinion, and somebody is free to ask for it, but should the gov’t be involved in posting it? I say no.
It’s not “voodoo” or the nature of “choice” that’s different in this thread – it’s that the LA stuff results from a certain agenda. Likewise, if the poster said, “It’s not a baby until it’s born,” you know darn well that pro-lifers would be objecting, and with good reason, IMO.
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What led to their “original” choice, Doug? How do you know that half the choices to abort weren’t on account of the woman hearing some “subjective” stuff which, on your view, no one should have told her? How do you know that half the choices to carry to term weren’t on account of the woman hearing some “subjective” stuff which, on your view, no one should have told her? You don’t. If you DID know, would you seek to undo the “damage” by apprising her of the fact that she was (gasp!) persuaded and she should revert to her earlier plans? But you can’t know, so you’re relieved of the burden of pondering THAT reductio. And since you can’t know, neither can you verify that her current choice is “authentic” by the standards your entire conversation seems to have assumed. You simply don’t know. Which means that you can’t claim that persuasion NOW in any way renders her choices inauthentic. The persuasion might be clearing her mind of prior confusion. Or it could be confusing her where her mind was clear. How do you know, Doug? You don’t.
Again, you are mischaracterizing things. I’m not saying nobody should tell the pregnant woman things, nor that she shouldn’t seek out others’ opinions if she wants them. I’m saying the gov’t should not present the propaganda of one side in this argument – or indeed that of the other – as if it’s anything different from what it really is.
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But there’s one thing you can know. When she finally does choose, whether persuasion was present or not, it’s her choice. It’s her legal choice. It’s her pro-choice because that’s the law of the land — not because she was free from persuasive voices.
And if the LA stuff was not the result of some people who want it not to be the law of the land, then it would be a different deal.
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But don’t ever let me hear from some hypocritical pro-choicer who mouths the “safe, legal and rare” mantra that they’re sincere about the “rare” thing unless they’re willing, themselves, to advise women against abortion and respect unborn life as much as possible. Because if they’re going to be hypocrites, they’re also going to be tagged as pro-abortion and anti-life — and that tag will have been earned.
Well hey – if somebody goes into it with a “net negative” feeling against continuing the pregnancy, and promotes their own agenda of the pregnancy being ended versus continued, then I certainly agree they are not pro-choice, there.
All other things being equal, I do hope that abortions are safe for the woman, versus less safe. As for “rare,” again – if nobody wanted to have an abortion, that’s fine with me. Per se, I see nothing “good” with abortion that somehow “needs to be” on its own – I certainly see preventing an unwanted pregnancy as better than ending one via abortion.
Doug:
While it’s possible that somebody who is not against the legal choice of abortion could do the persuasion as you propose, it’s also true that often it results from a truly anti-choice stance.
So? What difference does it make if someone is “anti-choice?” Such a person who persuades a woman not to abort has committed no “anti-choice” act whatsoever. None.
Do you not understand this?
I really am pro-choice. If nobody wanted to have an abortion, that would be fine with me.
But you’re not interested in protecting unborn life even though doing so would not require you to be “anti-choice.” You believe persuadinga woman not to have an abortion is likely to be “anti-choice” — and yet the only rationale you’ve offered for that is utterly non sequitur — that the person doing the persuading doesn’t believe a woman should be entitled to choose abortion.
It’s bizarre, Doug. For someone apparently rational in these parts, you’ve taken a vacation from sense.
I’m saying the gov’t should not present the propaganda of one side in this argument – or indeed that of the other – as if it’s anything different from what it really is.
Well I don’t think the government should fund an organization that performs abortions. Sounds as if you could get behind that with me. Thanks!
I had said: “But there’s one thing you can know. When she finally does choose, whether persuasion was present or not, it’s her choice. It’s her legal choice. It’s her pro-choice because that’s the law of the land — not because she was free from persuasive voices.” and you replied:
And if the LA stuff was not the result of some people who want it not to be the law of the land, then it would be a different deal.
You’re asserting that, but you haven’t actually argued it. See above.
How does a person’s view of whether a woman SHOULD have a choice to abort, have any bearing on whether the woman actually makes a choice to abort or not, after an attempt at persuasion? What possible effect does the advisor’s view of the appropriateness of the law have on whether the woman’s final choice is…her choice?
Doug: Noticed your prior post as well.
Sorry, but you’re just not making much sense. Pro-choice means being for the legal option to abort. I cited sources to that effect. Being in favor of a legal option in no way implies neutrality on the question of whether abortion should, or should not, be a choice.
A woman makes a choice for any of a great number of reasons. Some of these reasons may be the influence of others. Nothing about this influence — in either direction — is “anti-choice.” The influencing party’s view of whether abortion should be a legal option or not has no bearing on whether the woman chooses authentically after hearing some persuasion, one way or another.
“Safe, legal, and rare.”
Persuading a woman not to have an abortion in no way compromises the safety of women who choose otherwise. It in no way changes the law. And it makes abortion more rare.
If the maxim is consistent with pro-choice, then anyone persuading a woman to choose consistent with the maxim cannot really be anti-choice.
People we know make choices of many kinds, all the time. As their friends, we frequently advise them — generally when they seek our advice. It would be insane to characterize us as somehow “anti-choice” in the case that we evinced an obvious preference for one outcome. It would be a bad friend if, when asked to give a clear answer, offered some lame “I can neither confirm nor deny…” response because he heard from Doug that being anything other than non-directive or ambiguous would constitute a lack of respect for their choice. This is precisely opposite to all common sense people have always had. I take it that this is because abortion sends some people, rationally, into exceptional territory where carts steer their mules; keeping the pro-life barbarians outside the gate requires some changes in how we think about this stuff.
I realize you’re emphasizing the LA issue. Needless to say, I’m not — but that’s because you’ve broached an irrational claim that has a life of its own outside the LA situation.
While it’s possible that somebody who is not against the legal choice of abortion could do the persuasion as you propose, it’s also true that often it results from a truly anti-choice stance.
Raqual: So? What difference does it make if someone is “anti-choice?” Such a person who persuades a woman not to abort has committed no “anti-choice” act whatsoever. None.
And if was a case of one woman being so persuaded, that would be one thing. What we are talking about is government taking the subjective position of one side of the argument, a side that is often demonstrably anti-choice on the matter of legal abortion, and presenting it as fact.
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I really am pro-choice. If nobody wanted to have an abortion, that would be fine with me.
But you’re not interested in protecting unborn life even though doing so would not require you to be “anti-choice.”
Rasqual, I support the restrictions most states already have on later-term abortions. I’m not “pro-choice,” there. When the pregnancy is a wanted one (without regard to time of gestation), then I’m all for protecting the unborn life. I have no desire for it to end, per se, and certainly don’t see that anybody beyond the parents should decide.
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You believe persuading a woman not to have an abortion is likely to be “anti-choice” — and yet the only rationale you’ve offered for that is utterly non sequitur — that the person doing the persuading doesn’t believe a woman should be entitled to choose abortion.
It’s bizarre, Doug. For someone apparently rational in these parts, you’ve taken a vacation from sense.
Nonsense – the “propaganda” part of the Lousiana posters results from anti-choice sentiment, almost surely. That is why there are objections to it. The very same objections would come from pro-lifers, should subjective pro-choice sentiments be so posted.
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I’m saying the gov’t should not present the propaganda of one side in this argument – or indeed that of the other – as if it’s anything different from what it really is.
Well I don’t think the government should fund an organization that performs abortions. Sounds as if you could get behind that with me. Thanks!
Not sure about the funding, but I think that a poster saying, “Go ahead and have an abortion since it’s not a baby,” (admittedly more of an extreme example) is similarly out-of-line given the governmental origin and the subjectivity of it.
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I had said: “But there’s one thing you can know. When she finally does choose, whether persuasion was present or not, it’s her choice. It’s her legal choice. It’s her pro-choice because that’s the law of the land — not because she was free from persuasive voices.” and you replied:
And if the LA stuff was not the result of some people who want it not to be the law of the land, then it would be a different deal.
You’re asserting that, but you haven’t actually argued it. See above.
I’ve argued it all along, and I think it’s obvious to most people. As said previously, the only way you could be correct is if nobody that was influential in the choice of language for the LA posters was against the choice of legal abortion. I submit that that is so unlikely as to be preposterous as an assumption in this argument. As CC said, “The points are straight out of the anti-choice playbook of reasons not to have an abortion.” I think the use of “child” falls in line with that.
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How does a person’s view of whether a woman SHOULD have a choice to abort, have any bearing on whether the woman actually makes a choice to abort or not, after an attempt at persuasion?
None, necessarily, because there indeed would be cases just as you portray. But we’re not talking about a given, individual case, we’re talking about government-mandated postings in clinics.
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What possible effect does the advisor’s view of the appropriateness of the law have on whether the woman’s final choice is…her choice?
All that is required for a law is that there is sufficient opinion for it to exist. If the advisor makes the law, that alone would do it. My point all along is that it’s folly to think that nobody that’s behind the LA postings is against the choice of legal abortion. The objections to the posters are not because “somebody might talk to the pregnant woman, and advise her.”
This very day, it’s likely that somebody, somewhere, will talk to a pregnant woman and say that an abortion should not be had because “it’s a baby,” or “it’s a child,” or because of any of a multitude of the advisor’s feelings. That’s not what the objections, here, are to.
Sorry, but you’re just not making much sense. Pro-choice means being for the legal option to abort. I cited sources to that effect. Being in favor of a legal option in no way implies neutrality on the question of whether abortion should, or should not, be a choice.
Rasqual, I appreciate you keeping going, here. Okay – yes, agreed, “pro-choice” means being for the legal option to abort. Also agreed that it doesn’t necessarily mean “neutral” as you say. I’m not disagreeing with that because you’ve turned things around. It’s not that no pro-choicer has his own “should” or “should nots” with regard to the issue, it’s that those who are demonstrably against the choice of legal abortion can and often do evince the subjective sentiments present in the LA case, and it’s gov’t mandating of the posting of them that has garnered the objections.
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A woman makes a choice for any of a great number of reasons. Some of these reasons may be the influence of others. Nothing about this influence — in either direction — is “anti-choice.” The influencing party’s view of whether abortion should be a legal option or not has no bearing on whether the woman chooses authentically after hearing some persuasion, one way or another.
Well said, and I do understand what you mean. Nevertheless, there are people at this time who are against the legal choice of abortion, and for their subjective opinions to be government-mandated to be posted is what has people objecting.
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“Safe, legal, and rare.”
Persuading a woman not to have an abortion in no way compromises the safety of women who choose otherwise. It in no way changes the law. And it makes abortion more rare.
Short of the persuasion being coercive, I agree. On the “more rare,” I think that from the main pro-choice perspective, “more rare” comes from unwanted pregnancies being prevented, rather than ended by abortion. If, in the end, the pregnancy is wanted – and this could be due to the input of a third party, as you propose – then pro-choice doesn’t have a problem with that in the first place. Anybody that does isn’t really pro-choice. When we talk about the abortion debate, it’s implied that the pregnancies are unwanted, otherwise it wouldn’t be an issue, i.e. there’s not a significant amount of sentiment to the effect that “women should have abortions because there are too many people on earth.” “Significant” as in presenting any real influence on what the law allows or mandates.
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If the maxim is consistent with pro-choice, then anyone persuading a woman to choose consistent with the maxim cannot really be anti-choice.
Okay, and for a given “anyone” as you propose, that could be the truth. Taking sentiments which are often demonstrably anti-choice, and having it be required posting at clinics is a different matter.
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People we know make choices of many kinds, all the time. As their friends, we frequently advise them — generally when they seek our advice. It would be insane to characterize us as somehow “anti-choice” in the case that we evinced an obvious preference for one outcome. It would be a bad friend if, when asked to give a clear answer, offered some lame “I can neither confirm nor deny…” response because he heard from Doug that being anything other than non-directive or ambiguous would constitute a lack of respect for their choice. This is precisely opposite to all common sense people have always had. I take it that this is because abortion sends some people, rationally, into exceptional territory where carts steer their mules; keeping the pro-life barbarians outside the gate requires some changes in how we think about this stuff.
I realize you’re emphasizing the LA issue. Needless to say, I’m not — but that’s because you’ve broached an irrational claim that has a life of its own outside the LA situation.
If it’s one friend giving their honest opinion to another, all fine and good. That’s not what is being objected to, here. I have never said that that would necessarily be anti-choice nor have I ever objected to it, period.
Friend A says to Friend B, “You should not have an abortion because it’s a child.” I’m not objecting to that.
Friend A says to Friend B, “You should have an abortion because it’s not a child.” I’m not objecting to that.
Friend A says to Friend B, “You should make your own best choice, and your feeling as to whether it’s a child or not may factor into that.” No objections there either.
But for the gov’t to get involved in such subjective stuff – that’s where the objections come in.
Yes, the LA issue – gov’t taking the subjective side of anti-choicers (those who are against abortion being a legal choice) and saying it must be posted in clinics. That’s why there are objections.