(Prolifer)ations 12-30-11
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.
- The Anti-Abortion Gang shares a link from the Abortion Gang, who are proud to report that they helped a woman abort her baby at 21 weeks gestation – not for a “health exception” but because the woman didn’t realize she was pregnant until more than halfway through the pregnancy.
- Abby Johnson shares her personal experiences with patients who used abortifacient IUD during her tenure at Planned Parenthood, disputing the claim that this form of birth control is safe for women.
- Big Blue Wave discusses the recent Utah case in which four of five justices agreed that the term “minor child” includes the preborn. In Canadian law, a fetus is called a child, but the dissenting UT judge claims this sort of labeling is “anti-abortion rhetoric.”
- The Family Research Council notes the CDC’s release of the latest abortion statistics. Though individual state reporting is not required and is therefore incomplete, the data show that minorities account for more than 56% of all abortions while comprising less than 30% of the population. Another interesting statistic: most abortions are surgical and are performed on women in their 20s.
- Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life recommends an article by JP Moreland that outlines the modern day infanticide practiced and considered today in medical facilities across the US.
- Live Action features an op-ed by Jewels Green reacting to the news that a Texas abortion facility performed abortions on Christmas Eve:Who would work in an abortion clinic on Christmas Eve? Who would schedule her child to be aborted on Christmas Eve? Surely, even non-Christians can recognize this day as holy to others. But for the abortion industry the day-to-day business of scheduled, purchased death, there are few holidays. For the abortion industry, truly nothing is sacred.
Dec.30, 2011 11:41 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.
Dear like minded fellow commenters,
Please take heart as the year 2012 approaches.
From the proabortion comments lately it is easy to see they have nothing. They truly believe that babies in the womb are “parasites, blobs of tissue, clumps of cells or invaders!!” they believe that a child isn’t a child until birth…no facts needed. No arguments, no sources. Just lala land.
If THAT is the best they can come up with we are in for an amazing year of prolife victories!!
God bless you and HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
happy new year everyone! i agree with you carla. they have nothing and they never have anything. they act like any woman who has an abortion of takes birth control is a point score for their team BUT women are waking up. they have been dumbing us down for years. women are regretting their abortions and wasting their fertile years on birth control. i regret it because i bought the lie that children were a bother. they are a blessing.
oops above post should say they never have had anything.
This is what I posted at abortion gang. Sure they’ll delete it.
“Wow. At my 20 week ultrasound with my second son he was fully formed. Fingers, toes, sweet little face, heart beating, brain formed, spinal column in perfect order… kicking and moving and living and clearly human. And yet you brag about paying to kill a baby at that age?
Why not offer to pay the hospital bills for these women? Why not offer free babysitting? Why not provide baby clothes, diapers, formula, cribs, car seats etc… Why not offer real help so that these babies can live? No. So much easier to write a check to and have these “burdens” killed than to actually invest in a woman’s life or in the life of her child.
And I’m sure you’ll delete this comment because unlike the pro-life websites where we allow pro-abortion comments to stand, you all can’t handle the truth and so delete any comment that questions your sick world-view.”
“Why not offer to pay the hospital bills for these women? Why not offer free babysitting? Why not provide baby clothes, diapers, formula, cribs, car seats etc… Why not offer real help so that these babies can live?”
Why not mind your own position and trust women to make their own reproductive decisions?
And BTW, abortion isn’t always about not being able to afford a child so your “offers” might not always be relevent.
Most women don’t WANT abortions CC. The irony for all of my friends who had them was that they felt they had NO choice but abortion.
Its you pro-aborts who always whine about “Are you going to pay for all the childcare needs? Are you going to buy all the things she needs if she has this baby?” Its your side who makes it about finances. For many women finances are the issue.
But whether finances or social issues are the problem, I say, lets HELP women have their babies. Not offer to dismember their babies.
But of course you wouldn’t get it. You would never pour your life into another woman’s life. You instead drone on and on about “trust them to make their own reproductive decisions.” Dismembering a baby in the womb is not a “reproductive decision”. A woman who is pregnant has ALREADY made a reproductive decision. She has already reproduced. I know biology is hard for you to grasp CC. Try to stay with me here.
The woman and her partner have already reproduced. Killing your children in the womb isn’t a “reproductive decision” any more than Susan Smith drowning her two sons was a “reproductive decision”.
My friends would have liked to have had a little help. A little emotional support too. And their babies would be here now. And they wouldn’t be missing that little person that grew in their wombs for a few weeks. That little person would be here now wrapping little arms around their necks and saying “I love you mommy!” like my son did to me tonight.
But that kind of reality is foreign to you isn’t it CC? The love between mother and child? Totally alien to your cold heart. You don’t want other women to experience that. Instead you want them shuttled off to a clinic and then years later when they grieve their lost children like Carla, you can mock and belittle them like you always do.
Why not mind your own position and trust women to make their own reproductive decisions?
If women want to sterilize themselves, I think it’s unfortunate, but honestly, I don’t really care.
If they want to use non-abortifacient birth control, I want them to have all the education possible before they decide if that’s best, but beyond that, I don’t really care.
When reproduction has already occurred, the “decision” has been made, if you will. The act has taken place, and they have reproduced another human. In this case, I DO care.
Saying “mind your own position” to pro-lifers is like telling someone to mind their own business when a husband is abusing a wife (or vice versa) or someone’s abusing their children.
Abortion is a grave human injustice which has resulted in the deaths of over 50 million humans in this country alone since legalization, and though those humans could not protest their own death sentences, we will not be silent.
I have to say that the venom I see exchanged between pro-life people and pro-choice people makes me so sad. Sydney’s comments above about the love of a mother and child being completely alien to someone just because they are pro-choice are not justified.
I don’t know how this divide can ever lessen. I particpate in pro-life blogs and other media because I want to understand the mindset of people I adamantly disagree with, and to see their humanity, and understand how their views are based in a value I can sympathize with. Sometimes I say things in anger that I regret to people whose ideas are threatening to me. I am trying to do better.
God bless you to people in the pro-life movement. I appreciate your hearts and the love you show toward children and the support you offer to women in your own way. I have been very helped by some pro-life women in resolving tremendous pain from past abortions.
Still, there is nothing I am more passionate about than the pro-choice movement.
There you are. Happy New Year, everyone. I hope for more resources for women who want to have children, better care for children born to women who don’t want them, and more peace among us.
Carla: From the proabortion comments lately it is easy to see they have nothing. They truly believe that babies in the womb are “parasites, blobs of tissue, clumps of cells or invaders!!” they believe that a child isn’t a child until birth…no facts needed. No arguments, no sources. Just lala land.
If THAT is the best they can come up with we are in for an amazing year of prolife victories!!
Eyeroll.
Well Sarah Jenson, I don’t know you. You haven’t been here for all the exchanges between CC and I. But please feel free to judge. CC has bragged about self-aborting her own child. She has gleefully recounted helping others abort. She has talked about the burden children are. I would say the love between mother and child IS an alien concept to CC.
We have seen abortion advocates telling us that sex selective abortions are none of our business, that Chinese forced abortions are not a problem, and this year I read a woman’s article where she admitted she got pregnant on purpose then changed her mind, had a late term abortion, and lied to her friends, family, and coworkers that it was a miscarriage. I have no common ground with any of that.
Women should be helped and encouraged to raise their families. Murdering pre-born children is not helping anyone at all.
Happy New Year and let’s hope 2012 makes Cecile Richards long for the good ole times of 2011, her “most difficult year yet.”
test
@ sarah. i want to start by saying that when you came forward with your rape story so did many others. i was almost the victim of a date rape after a night of drinking in my early 30s. i passed out at a friends house and her brothers friend was on top of me in the middle of the night. we both had our clothes on but he was aroused and i had to fight him off. i grabbed my coat and purse in the middle of the night and left. the father of my first 2 kids raped me after smaking me and sent me sailing across the room. he was on drugs and abusive. now sarah this is in no way directed at you but i have spoken to women on line who have lied about rape and incest. one girl had an abortion from a rape but she changed her story 6 times. first it was a boyfriend then it was a gang rape. after a while i just told her she was a liar. nothing added up. i said if you had an abortion on your own free will just admit it! then she asked me ” how would you like to be forced into a nursery?” any woman who would LIE about being raped is just as bad as a rapist.
Roll your eyes all you would like Doug.
The proaborts such as yourself have nothing. You have your own ideas and notions of what you think a living preborn human being is which is not based in reality. You are losing ground by the day and we will win.
Love wins.
“Saying “mind your own position” to pro-lifers is like telling someone to mind their own business when a husband is abusing a wife (or vice versa) or someone’s abusing their children.”
Wrong. Spousal and child abuse are criminal offenses. Abortion is NOT. Spousal and child abuse are violations involving humans who are out of a womb. Abortion involves an entity which is contained in sovereign body of a woman who, as a sovereign person, has rights which the right to life feel are secondary to the fetus.
And if conception occurs, the only decision is whether to maintain the pregnancy. Too bad the right to lifers don’t respect that.
And BTW, while you and your kindred spirits regret your abortions, the women I know, who aborted, feel that it was the best decision they ever made. My self abortion (long period, no “baby”) was a good thing for me. It would have been much better had abortion been legal but this is the sort of thing that happens when abortion is illegal or inaccessible. Yay, right?
And Sarah Jensen – You “bless” pro-lifers but are “passionate” about being pro-choice? Scuse me? Those whom you “bless” want to take choice away. There is NO common ground. Thus, your pro-choice credibility is very questionable. Sorry.
“You are losing ground by the day and we will win.”
You so don’t live in RI, CT, MA, NY, VT, CA, OR, WA. But as I said, when women in your pro-life states want to end their pregnancies, they will be welcome here. Course those are the ones who can travel. The rest will have their babies and we’ll all live happily ever after. Right?
OH, and forcing women to carry pregnancies to term isn’t love. It’s one of the worst forms of misogyny.
any woman who would lie about rape or incest is only doing other women a huge disservice. sarah i explained to you in my last post that because of legalized abortion rape and incest have increased because of the abortion clinics willingness to keep it secret. now you said your dad had his friend perform an illegal abortion on you pre roe BUT you also said that he kept raping you after that and you became pregnant several more times from your father. again how did the abortion help you? it helped your father to keep incest quiet. you remained a victim. this is not good for young girls in your shoes today.
the worst form of mysogyny is telling a woman to get up on a table and allow a male abortionist to rip her baby apart. HER BABY HER TRAUMA and what if she has to have an emergency c section or gets breast cancer down the line? abortion also kills little baby girls and that is the worst form of mysogyny.
oops above post should say an emergency hysterectomy….not c section. this does happen and tthe womans reproductive choice is taken away forever. real pro woman cc.
Heather
I wish I were lying, but everything I said is true. And I agree with you that lying about rape and incest does a huge disservice to everyone. It dilutes the horror of it.
I’m sorry for what happened to you. I wish women would stop having to go through these horrible experiences.
cc: I don’t care about having “credentials.” Just saying how I feel. Some of my best friends are pro-life. I would hate to live in a world where we couldn’t befriend anyone who disagrees with us.
Wow. Sarah Jensen is pro-choice. Okay, i need to read a little less fast and little more fully.
Sarah, I am not trying to be mean to CC. CC and I have long exchanges. I would not say that every pro-choice person hates children or hates motherhood or has no capability for loving another human being. Then there are some pro-choicers that absolutely fit that bill. I call it how I see it. And I can only see people for the way they present themselves on this site. There are opinions i have of CC, Joan, Biggz, Doug etc… because of the exchanges I’ve had with them. And I’m sure they have their opinions of me. No worries. I’m still going to speak out for prenatal life.
Sydney. I didn’t realize you were speaking in the context of a history with cc. I hadn’t read all the posts. Sorry.
Roll your eyes all you would like Doug.
The proaborts such as yourself have nothing. You have your own ideas and notions of what you think a living preborn human being is which is not based in reality. You are losing ground by the day and we will win.
Carla, abortion may indeed become more illegal or even pretty close to being banned, in the future. I’m not at all saying that is impossible. But you did mischaracterize the pro-choice position. In the same vein, somebody could say that pro-lifers will never force their misogynistic dream of enslaving women to their desires down the throat of the American people.
Pro-Choicers have their opinion, just the same as you do, personally, and as pro-lifers do, in general. The physical reality of the unborn is really not the argument, though you often assert otherwise. In no way is there any necessary “reality” on your side any more than there is for pro-choicers.
I was busy when I posted the “eyeroll,” and in truth did feel a bit snarky doing it. If nothing else, you gotta give me that it’s not my usual deal to reply with just one single word. ;) :)
To be frank, though, a good bit of what I see from pro-lifers amounts to bitter trash-talking. Hey – anybody can do that. Ranting, raving, pretending about what “the other side of the debate” is, etc. If a pro-choicer did the same, I wouldn’t say that was meaningful debate, either.
The abortion argument is a great one, philosophically (at least in my opinion). What if it didn’t exist?
If there were no unwanted pregnancies, then we’d both be fine with it. I do believe the level and depth of your caring about the issue, and it’s a new year and for you personally I don’t wish anything but happiness.
Doug
Thank you for your post. I do agree with pro-lifers on a lot of things. I don’t think abortion is a good thing (just that at times the option to have one is necessary); in fact, in an ideal world there would be no abortion:
people would wait until much later to be sexually active
there would be no rape
men would take responsibility for their actions
women would be respected
there would be no sexual abuse
birth control would be more effective and men would take more
responsibility
pregnant women would have much better resources to have a safe
birth and take care of their children.
no woman would feel she had to have an abortion because of
lack of resources.
society would value children more
adoption would be an easier process
May it be so!
Happy New Year.
“Spousal and child abuse are criminal offenses. Abortion is NOT.”
CC, Do you agree or disagree that spousal and child abuse were just as wrong when they were not criminal offenses? Do you agree or disagree that spousal and child abuse would continue to be wrong even if these behaviors were legalized?
Of course, I don’t expect answers from you, CC. Just pointing out your faulty logic.
Thanks for your blessings on we prolifers, Sarah. My blessings to all prochoicers, too, including you, CC. Our common ground is that we are all human and we all deserved the right to life based on that commonality.
Great list, Sarah. We all realize that we don’t live in an ideal world and the reality is that these things will always be around to some degree.
The reality is also that legalized abortion has solved none of these problems but has contributed to making many of them worse.
How would have abortion of any or all of my three children from an abusive man have solved anything for me? As it is, they gave me a reason to get it together.
The bond between mother and child is, I believe, the strongest of all human bonds (with some individual exceptions of course). Abortion has weakened these bonds among mother and child and in turn weakened bonds between all of us.
“CC, Do you agree or disagree that spousal and child abuse were just as wrong when they were not criminal offenses?”
Most enlightened legal systems have always found these actions to be criminal because there has been, and continues to be, consensus that an assault on another person violates their rights. As fetuses are not considered persons with legal rights (how’d Mississippi work out for ya?)the same principal does not obtain. Unfortunately for you folks, there is no universal consensus that abortion is murder. There are, as you know, communities of faith who support a woman’s right to an abortion as does the majority of the American medical community. Those of us who believe that woman’s right to decide what’s right for her body outweigh rights for fetuses are still out there and we’re not going away anytime soon.
“the worst form of mysogyny is telling a woman to get up on a table and allow a male abortionist to rip her baby apart.”
Once again, we see the pro-life belief that woman are either too stupid or too childlike to make their own decision to “get up on a table.” Does Heather actually believe that American women are forced to do this? Obviously in China, this happens and it’s wrong. But here we have choice – notwithstanding the attempts of the pro-life movement and the Catholic/evangelical Protestant church to eliminate it.
“abortion rape and incest have increased because of the abortion clinics willingness to keep it secret,”
Of all the ludicrous pro-life statements, this one takes the cake. I guess Heather doesn’t realize that older women, past childbearing years, get raped as do both male and female children not old enough to go to abortion clinics. One doesn’t need to have taken any sociology courses to know that child abuse hasn’t increased – as there has always been child abuse (sexual abuse is inter-generational. It’s the reporting that has increased. If, as Heather posits, there is less reporting, then the rates would go down. But right, rapes are happening more frequently because guys know that Planned Parenthood won’t report it. Word to Heather, unless it’s a minor or incapacitated adult, rape must be reported by the victim or somebody actually witnessing the event.
“there is no universal consensus that abortion is murder.”
Call it whatever you want. Abortion kills a human. No “enlightened” country, legal system or human needs to tell me that killing innocent humans is wrong. Some things just come down to common sense, for me. Abortion is one of them.
Have you ever talked about why you chose to abort your child, CC? Would you share again if you have or share for the first time if you haven’t? Do you have any living children?
Doug, how is the physical reality of the unborn not an argument against killing them?
That is super scary to hear that. The physical reality of ME might not be enough to prevent those stronger than me from killing me someday. Because when there are people who do not respect human life, then you’re right, the physical reality of fellow human life is sometimes not enough to prevent them from murdering others. I think of the parents who suffocate and kill their children, or the teens that shoot their parents or the husbands that murder their wives and vice versa. All were aware of the physical reality of the human being they were murdering… but in their selfishness they didn’t care.
Sarah, I wish your list could be reality… no rapes, no broken relationships, no financial strains… no reason for abortion whatsoever. But in this imperfect world, though we may strive for it, we will always have tough circumstances and unplanned pregnancies. Abortion does not however, solve any of those problems. Abortion does no undo rape. Abortion does not stop a man from beating his wife. Abortion does not put money in the bank account. Abortion solves nothing.Abortion merely kills a developing child. We have to (despite what Doug says) focus on the reality of the unborn. The unborn are human beings and alive. Should killing fellow living human beings be the solution to our problems? If we say yes in regards to the unborn then why do we not allow women with newborns to make the same “reproductive choice”? If being in crisis is the only prerequisite for killing a defenseless human child in the womb then why is it not the prerequisite for killing a child out of the womb? The physical reality of the child is the same. The child is human and alive. The child exists while in the womb and out. Yet we say “Abortion is sad, but it should be a choice for women in crisis when they are pregnant.” But women in crisis with born children are expected to get their act together, and do what they have to do to put the welfare of their child first. The fact that their man ran off or they have no money or they were raped is no longer an excuse to shun motherhood or kill the child once that child has been born. And I don’t understand it. To me the crisis is exactly the same, only the location of the child is different.
I personally find it almost as bad as rape and incest when people assume someone is lying about being raped or abused. Don’t know where that came from, Heather.
JACK i was talking to a girl on line who LIED to me about being raped! as a rape victimb i didnt appreciate it! and THAT IS WHERE THAT CAME FROM!!!!!!
I saw that, Heather, it just seemed like a weird thing to randomly bring up when talking to Sarah about your and her’s situation. It was a bit jarring.
jack i told sarah that it wasnt about her if you had read my post. mind your own business. i wasnt talking to you. you need to stop getting in the middle. i notice you like to try to start trouble.
Eh, you can’t really tell someone on a public posting to “mind their own business”, that doesn’t even make sense. If a mod has a problem with a post they can remove it, otherwise I can write my opinions on whatever I want. I start trouble? Lol, please copy paste my posts that do so, kthanks.
oh and JACK i did NOT call sarah a liar and she didnt even have a problem with it. she can speak for herself. Do NOT assume and put words in my mouth. i was talking about someone else. sorry you took my post and twisted it to create drama? i do not appreciate your assumption that my post was to sarah because it wasnt. i feel you just said that to me to be snarky!
well we dont have to like each other. i just dont like the way you assumed something and jumped in the middle. you know what they say about people who assume? carry on
cc you say all of your post abortive friends are happy they aborted? mine arent. im sure thats not true. perhaps thats what they tell you because you are so pro abortion.
Because it actually bothered me, personally. If it didn’t bother Sarah that’s good. I have been in the situation where I have talked about abuse that has happened to me, and then the person I was talking to starts randomly talking about people lying about sexual abuse, and it’s actually pretty harmful and upsetting to me. If Sarah isn’t bothered that’s great, I’m glad. But I can write a response to something I feel needed to be said. It was a bit snarky, and I am sorry, I shouldn’t have stated it that way. I should have explained fully.
cc so are you saying abortion clinics dont need to report abuse of an 11 year old pregnant girl? if not why not?
Doug,
Abortion kills an innocent preborn human being. The procedure tears a baby apart and she is removed from her mother’s body in pieces.
No proabort has been able to prove otherwise.
No civilized society should support or promote such barbarism against the smallest and most defenseless among us.
well jack my new years resolution is to just let things roll off so no harm done. i have survived sexual abuse ( rape ) and to be called a liar would hurt. i know sarah isnt lying. i was just saying that a teen girl told me she was pulled into the bushes and raped walking home from school. she became pg. and aborted. when i asked her if she reported the guy the story changed several times. her last tale was that it was a gang rape and she didnt know the men to report them. since most of the women here were raped or sexually abused i shared that story. do women lie about rape? yes. did i believe sarah lied to me?….No.
Sarah Jensen: Thank you for your post. I do agree with pro-lifers on a lot of things. I don’t think abortion is a good thing (just that at times the option to have one is necessary); in fact, in an ideal world there would be no abortion:
Sarah – wow, didn’t expect to see that. *Thank you* too for your post. Sort of have to laugh, here – to a large extent I don’t know what to say – I have nothing to equal or even “really affect” your experience.
I agree that per se, “abortion is not a good thing.” Certainly, from my point of view, better to prevent unwanted pregnancies by contraception than end them by abortion. And I know that’s far from everybody’s “ideal solution,” but I also don’t see people necessarily waiting until later in life to be sexually active, nor do I see the decline in fertility (which comes hand-in-hand with the decrease in mortality) being “magically waved out of existence), i.e. to a large extent the modern world is as it is, and there’s no “wishing it away.”
____
people would wait until much later to be sexually active
there would be no rape
To me, while desirable goals, this is “pie in the sky stuff,” it won’t really affect the way things are.
____
men would take responsibility for their actions
I think this is already pretty well spelled out, notwithstanding that people here and there will always wish that things were different.
____
women would be respected. there would be no sexual abuse. birth control would be more effective and men would take more responsibility. pregnant women would have much better resources to have a safe birth and take care of their children.
Quite a mix of things here – agreed that better birth control would help things, but as to what is really the most “respecting of women,” taking away the liberty they currently have in the matter of abortion is hardly necessarily that. I also do agree that “better resources” to have a safe birth and take care of kids would make a difference to lots of women, but just where we devote resources is a question, among both the “liberal” and “conservative” positions, in general.
____
No woman would feel she had to have an abortion because of lack of resources. Society would value children more
adoption would be an easier process.
Okay, so no matter what else, we’re going to devote resources to pregnant women, to the end that they continue pregnancies? This is not “real-world” stuff, first and foremost among Conservatives. How can “society” be engineered to “value children more” especially in times of rapidly-increasing population, resource shortages, and the abortion debate as it exists? If not simply impossible, it’s certainly farfetched, and if anything, the seeds of that arguments’ own destruction are carried within it – i.e. eventually population pressure itself will overturn it.
Don’t really know that much about it, but in general I do agree that adoption “should be an easier process.”
CC: Unfortunately for you folks, there is no universal consensus that abortion is murder
Indeed, and it goes much farther than that. It’s not a matter of “universal consensus” in the first place. It’s a legal deal. For all the frequent “complaints” from pro-lifers that pro-choicers are denying some necessary reality, what we really see is pro-lifers doing just that. Somebody or some group not liking a thing does not make it “murder,” necessarily. What more routinely-held belief among pro-choicers can be held up against this? Nothing.
Sydney: Doug, how is the physical reality of the unborn not an argument against killing them?
It’s not “an argument” for anything. Any and all “shoulds” and “should nots” – the entire “good,bad,right,wrong” of the moral realm only come into play when we look at desires related to things. The physical universe already exists, outside of that.
Carla: Abortion kills an innocent preborn human being. The procedure tears a baby apart and she is removed from her mother’s body in pieces. No proabort has been able to prove otherwise.
Yeah, because that’s not the argument in the first place. If you can quote somebody saying “abortion is good because the unborn ‘are guilty of such-and-such'” then I’ll disagree with them as strongly as anybody. Meanwhile, the abortion debate remains.
____
No civilized society should support or promote such barbarism against the smallest and most defenseless among us.
Same as saying no civilized society should take away the individual liberty of people without a good enough reason. You are also assuming that the unborn are part of the “us” that is considered, and that is far from the truth, necessarily.
Doug
I didn’t mean to suggest that any of this was realistically going to happen–except in small ways. Just that they were values I shared with many pro-lifers. Also didn’t mean to direct it at you specifically. Just musing.
Sarah, not a problem at all. :)
I am all for the small ways and big ways to combat incest, abuse, rape, etc. – things where the suffering involved is large enough that I don’t think there is any significant argument to the contrary, that we “should not try to do that.”
Really, suffering is a lot of what I look at within the debate over legal abortion or not. Nothing personal meant or implied here – I am talking in general terms – there can be a lot of abortions due to unwanted pregnancies, same as there can be a lot of miscarriages and/or failed implantations even without the woman or couple knowing about it. No suffering, especially large amounts of it, necessarily involved there.
Contrast that with one single case of abuse, or one single case where the couple involved want kids very much, and a miscarriage (or the abuse) can then be a very sad thing.
Doug,
Idiocy. Absolute idiocy.
The argument is that an innocent human being dies in an abortion. The INTENT of an abortion is to kill. To end a life. And that it is wrong. And we should not tolerate it nor promote or support it. Abortion will be illegal again.
I have no doubt.
And you can continue to do nothing and claim that it is all about a “woman’s right to choose.”
No need to answer. Yawn.
So Doug, you agree that the unborn are innocent. In what civilized society do we put innocent people to death? We don’t even put convicted murderers to death by dismemberment.
The right to LIFE supersedes liberty. You are talking to a pro-liberty woman. I am extremely conservative with strong libertarian leanings. I love liberty. I love choice! I really do! But not when that choice means death to an innocent human being.
You say the unborn aren’t the “us” that we’re talking about here. And as pointed out before (many times) that is exactly the same mindset the slave owners and nazis had. The blacks and Jews weren’t part of the “us” either.
Moral relativism is dangerous. You can pick and choose what is right and wrong. There are no absolutes. Being human doesn’t mean a thing as some floating realm somewhere decides who is part of “us” and who isn’t.
“If you can quote somebody saying “abortion is good because the unborn ‘are guilty of such-and-such’” then I’ll disagree with them as strongly as anybody.
Doug, you yourself have implied the fetus is guilty of a crime, the crime of violating the woman’s bodily autonomy. It is true, though, that you have not used the terms guilty or crime, and nor have you said abortion was a good thing. However, numerous posts by other regular commenters on here have flat out said fetuses were guilty of invading a woman’s sovereignty without her permission and that abortion is good and empowering. As often as you post here, I would be surprised if you had not seen those assertions.
On a more salient point, I have to echo Sydney M’s post — in what civilized society do we put innocent people to death, or routinely allow the innocent to be killed? Some people will say, “They’re not people, so moot point.” And again, as Sydney M pointed out — this is a common assertion throughout history, that one group with power declares another group as non-people, so they have no rights. C
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you have stated before that the fetus’ rights are subjugated to the woman because they are inside the sovereign space of the woman. Aren’t you then going back to the first point, that they are *guilty* of something? If not, then they are innocent, and your pro-choice argument says, in essence, that innocent people can be put to death.
hey doug president obama is coming here this week. and dont take this personally but as carla said a few weeks back ( i need a doug free day ) well i need mine now;) as far as the abortion debate goes.
and back to cc um i have met numerous women over the years who have had abortions. out of all of them i can honeslty say that there is one who says she has no regrets. she doesnt bring it up at all and this was about 16 years ago. also my sister in law has had a few abortions and does remain pro abortion.
so that makes only 2 cc.
eric dougs posts are so very hard to follow and the last part of your post just made me realize what i have just pointed out……..dougs posts are so very hard to follow. he debates in circles.
“so that makes only 2 cc.”
As a statistical sample, neither you nor I can determine a valid and reliable number. It would be interesting to see objective (not right to life) polling data. As such, all we have is anecdotal evidence. What is safe to say is that some women regret their abortions and some don’t.
My friends who aborted also remain pro-choice but say “I would NEVER have another abortion!” They tell me “My abortion made me want to die. I hate myself for what I did.” They admit their sexual dysfunction, eating disorders, infertility, alcohol problems, rage issues and depression arose after their abortions. Of course each of these women have a few of these problems, not all of them together, but I’m lumping them here together in a group.
My friends are not quite ready to come out and say they are pro-life but some of the things they say sound very pro-life. And they grieve. They grieve that “clump of cells” that they were told they would never grieve. They tell me they think of how old their baby would be now. And the ones who went on to have children tell me they can’t help but think of their aborted babies when they look at the faces of the babies they have now.
Abortion hurts women.
yeah sydney although the 2 women i made mention of can say they dont regret their abortions my sister in law smokes pot every day and is almost 300 pounds. the other woman struggles with self esteem issues and sees a therapist. there is probably a connection but women are taught not to grieve a “glob of tissue” so they stuff it.
and women will confide in other women because we all have the ability to get pregnant ( unless you have some sort of problem ) and yes my friends do say the same…( the MAJORITY cc) ” i would never have another abortion” ” i didnt think it through and i feel like s***” said yet another. or ” my mom told me to have one but i never knew id feel this way.” if abortion was just a choice like picking out what clothing to wear for the day then why would women even say such things? it would be a non issue.
Carla: Idiocy. Absolute idiocy.
No it’s not. It’s me disagreeing with you on what is most important. I am not saying that “pro-lifers are idiots,” nor that they are “devils, demons and monsters,” etc. There are reasonable, caring people on both sides of the argument.
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The argument is that an innocent human being dies in an abortion. The INTENT of an abortion is to kill. To end a life.
Certainly true, but that is not “the argument.” It’s also factually true that abortion will be legal or not, and that some women will have unwanted pregnancies. It’s when we get to the “shoulds” and “should nots” that the arguments begin.
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And that it is wrong. And we should not tolerate it nor promote or support it.
I certainly believe you feel that way.
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Abortion will be illegal again. I have no doubt.
I definitely have doubts, there. How do we really know? Granted that it could again be illegal, but I also remember people in the late 1990s swearing up; and down that it would be illegal “soon” or “within 5 years” or “within 10 years,” and the same in 2002, 2005, etc.
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And you can continue to do nothing and claim that it is all about a “woman’s right to choose.”
There again, that is really not what I say nor what I claim. Yes, there are the unborn to consider, as well as the pregnant women.
and cc sydney once commented that a few of her friends cried with snot dripping from their noses. i came across that when i crossed paths with a nurse i used to work with. i believe she aborted in 99. she moved tob Texas and then moved back here. she brought up her abortion to me and went into hysteria face in hands crying “why why why”? she told me about nightmares of a little girl coming to her in her dreams. she cried ” i reach out to touch her and shes gooooooooone” sobbing harder. ” i killed my daughter.” do you know how hard it was for me to sit there and watch that? she said “the only one i could talk to about this was a lady in Texas.” i stroked her back and told her ” its going to be okay” “God forgives you.” “noooooooo no no he doesnt.” i gave her the book I’ll Hold You In Heaven she thanked me. may God heal her heart.
Syndey: So Doug, you agree that the unborn are innocent. In what civilized society do we put innocent people to death? We don’t even put convicted murderers to death by dismemberment.
Sydney, again – the claim is not that “the unborn are guilty.” There is no capacity for guilt, there, anyway. Granted that pro-choicers disagree with you on some things, but if the claim from the pro-life side is that, “pro-choicers say the unborn are guilty,” that’s really a straw man.
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The right to LIFE supersedes liberty. You are talking to a pro-liberty woman. I am extremely conservative with strong libertarian leanings. I love liberty. I love choice! I really do! But not when that choice means death to an innocent human being.
On the one hand, that really does not apply to the abortion debate, because full rights and personhood are not attributed to the unborn. You want rights to be so attributed, but that is not the case now. And on the other hand, no – the right to life does not necessarily supersede liberty. There are plenty of times when society says it’s okay for lives to be ended.
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You say the unborn aren’t the “us” that we’re talking about here. And as pointed out before (many times) that is exactly the same mindset the slave owners and nazis had. The blacks and Jews weren’t part of the “us” either.
I agree, yet the slaves and the Jews were not inside the body of a person – which is one obvious large difference. There is also the matter of sentience, awareness, emotion, capacity to suffer, etc., and there is no doubt that the slaves and Jews had all that. If we want to make analogies, well, you think you have a good enough reason to restrict the liberty of pregnant women, and the slavemasters and those who favored slavery felt there was a good enough reason to restrict the liberty of the slaves.
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Moral relativism is dangerous. You can pick and choose what is right and wrong. There are no absolutes. Being human doesn’t mean a thing as some floating realm somewhere decides who is part of “us” and who isn’t.
Well, moral relativism is what we’ve got. No, there aren’t any “absolutes” here. Sometimes we say it’s all right to do a thing, and sometimes we don’t. This is indeed a “picking and choosing” going on – some say the life of the unborn has to trump the desires of the pregnant woman, and some do not.
doug there are times i read your posts and ask myself is this guy actually serious? straw men are pro choicers. they have no heat. they are just made of straw. o brain either
Eric: Doug, you yourself have implied the fetus is guilty of a crime, the crime of violating the woman’s bodily autonomy. It is true, though, that you have not used the terms guilty or crime, and nor have you said abortion was a good thing. However, numerous posts by other regular commenters on here have flat out said fetuses were guilty of invading a woman’s sovereignty without her permission and that abortion is good and empowering. As often as you post here, I would be surprised if you had not seen those assertions.
Eric, no – no implication that the unborn are “guilty” of *anything,* here. There is no will, no volition, no conscious intent, there cannot be guilt. As far as “permission” – how can that really matter? Once again, the unborn are not capable of perceiving anything such.
“Guilty of invading a woman’s sovereignty” – I’d say the most we can go there is that yeah, “the unborn are inside the woman’s body.” But this can’t have any aspect of conscious intent on the part of the unborn. If we are using it as a figure of speech, like, “He was guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” that is one thing. But if somebody means that the unborn are to be blamed – that type of guilt – then again I would disagree as strongly as you would.
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On a more salient point, I have to echo Sydney M’s post — in what civilized society do we put innocent people to death, or routinely allow the innocent to be killed? Some people will say, “They’re not people, so moot point.” And again, as Sydney M pointed out — this is a common assertion throughout history, that one group with power declares another group as non-people, so they have no rights.
As stated, we indeed do not put innocent people to death. There has to be a reason – circumstance, actions on the part of the person to be killed (guilt), etc. And yes – personhood is not attributed to the unborn. If it were, the abortion debate would be much different.
I hear you and Sydney on history. Yes, there has been slavery, misogny, caste systems, class systems, blah blah blah. Things are not perfectly equal now, for that matter, no matter what society you point at. There are people right now who are in favor of slavery (presumably picturing themselves as not being the slaves), people who want other people of different religions wiped off the face of the earth, etc. This has gone on “forever,” and is always going up-and-down around the world. The Birth Standard is quite different, however. No society, anywhere, at any time has accorded full rights and personhood to the unborn. Not that it’s impossible that it would ever be the case. But the “inside the body of a person” sets the abortion argument apart from slavery, religious conflicts, etc., and we’re not talking about “taking rights away,” we’re talking about them never having been attributed.
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Correct me if I’m wrong, but you have stated before that the fetus’ rights are subjugated to the woman because they are inside the sovereign space of the woman. Aren’t you then going back to the first point, that they are *guilty* of something? If not, then they are innocent, and your pro-choice argument says, in essence, that innocent people can be put to death.
Yes, you’re wrong – no personhood or “fetus’ rights” in the first place (with a possible exception which I’ll get to in a minute). Abortion is legal because not all pregnancies are wanted, some women want to have abortions, and the state is not seen to have a good enough reason to deny the liberty of the women in this respect (and of course I realize you think there *is* a good enough reason). No “guilt” on the part of the unborn.
In my opinion, the restrictions we have on late-term abortions constitute a limited form of rights and personhood for the unborn. I don’t think it’s set down in the law books like that – more that the states “consider it in their interest to restrict abortion at that point” – it’s a case of there being sufficient opinion for the law (late-term restrictions) to exist.
eric dougs posts are so very hard to follow and the last part of your post just made me realize what i have just pointed out……..dougs posts are so very hard to follow. he debates in circles.
Nonsense, Heather. I answer point-by-point.
If you want “circular,” how about you “realizing what you just pointed out”? ;) :)
It’s a straight-forward argument. Some people think that pregnancies should be continued, subject to penalty of law, even if the pregnant woman does not want it so. Other people do not think that.
“What is safe to say is that some women regret their abortions and some don’t.”
Uh, alrighty then. What is safe to say is that some men regret hitting their wives and some don’t.
I agree with you Heather about the circular nonsensical arguments. That’s all any proabort will end up with. There is nowhere else for them to go but in endless circles.
Endless circles, indeed.
While more women choose to kill their preborn offspring.
I don’t think it matters whether or not any woman regrets killing her child – her child is still dead. I have a friend in prison who killed someone and he regrets it though he can’t even recall actually doing it. But that doesn’t change the fact that the victim is still dead.
It’s interesting, though, how the legality of an action doesn’t necessarily minimize the regret of performing that action.
CC: It would be interesting to see objective (not right to life) polling data. As such, all we have is anecdotal evidence. What is safe to say is that some women regret their abortions and some don’t.
CC, there have been quite a few studies – showing that in general women were glad, on balance, that they’d had abortions, and that they would do the same thing again in similar circumstances. This is not to say that there weren’t “many” women who did regret it, on balance. There are any number of anecdotes, both ways, of course.
I’d like to see a comprehensive and long-term study, i.e. many years later.
hi praxedes…..its true. liberalism is a mental disorder. could anybody have put it any better. doug really doesnt answer questions. he gives an opinion. i wonder how many post abortive women hes really ever spoken to. i mean really LISTENED to. my guess is not many. its easy to make a blanket statement. like you said some men regret slapping their wives murder rape child abuse animal abuse…..some dont. so then we have tons of post abortive wounded women wandering around and doug says “so what it was your choice.” no solution just a circle!
CC: “What is safe to say is that some women regret their abortions and some don’t.”
Praxedes: Uh, alrighty then. What is safe to say is that some men regret hitting their wives and some don’t.
How is that a meaningful argument, here? CC is correct.
If you see somebody saying, “Women never regret abortions,” then I will disagree with them as strongly as you would. I imagine CC would too.
What we see, a good bit of the time, is pro-lifers presenting things as if all women regret having abortions. Or as if “abortion hurts women.” Said like that, in an unqualified manner. And that is just as false as would be saying that no woman regrets having an abortion. CC has a point.
hey doug president obama is coming here this week. and dont take this personally but as carla said a few weeks back ( i need a doug free day ) well i need mine now;)
So, I guess the prospect of old Barack and Doug together is just plain too much for you, eh, Heather? ;)
You eascal – I had not addressed a single post to you when you wrote that, and for somebody who needed a Doug-free day, you’ve been spending an awful lot of time on me. :)
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doug really doesnt answer questions. he gives an opinion. i wonder how many post abortive women hes really ever spoken to. i mean really LISTENED to. my guess is not many. its easy to make a blanket statement.
Good grief, Heather, I gotta call total BS on you there. I do answer, and when it’s my opinion, I say so, and – unlike quite a few people here – don’t pretend that my opinion represents some “external reality” that cannot be proven to be anything more than imaginary.
I’ve talked to women that have had abortions, and some definitely do regret it, overall, and some do not.
nice to see you kel happy new year to all. yep i have been debating these people for years and its just amazing how powerful denial is. talk about grasping at straws. ive heard abortion likened to tooth pulling kidney donation mowing the lawn boty autonomy ( of course the favorite ) anything but murder. pro life is so simple.
eh above post should say body autonomy. doug its nothing new under the sun. nothing personal. just the constant circle of opinion. so what about margaret( the real name of the woman i just posted about) let her go fly a kite huh? her abortion her mistake.
I’m correct, too. Some men regret hitting their wives and some don’t. Whether a man regrets hitting his wife or doesn’t will never change the fact that hitting one’s wife is morally wrong.
I’ve seen the signs. “I regret my abortion” “Women regret abortion”. I have also seen the men who have signs saying, “I regret lost fatherhood.” These are true statements. Maybe you’d be happy if the signs said, “SOME women regret abortion” in spite of all of us knowing that some women don’t regret their abortions — like some men don’t regret abusing others?
This doesn’t change the fact that I also know there are women (Gloria Steinem) who proudly wear their tees that state “I had an abortion” and drink java from their “I love abortion” mugs however I have only seen this on the internet not in public or on bumper stickers. I’ve yet to see a sign or shirt saying, “I’m proud my wife aborted” and “It’s cool my girlfriend had an abortion” What do you think the feminists would think if men started wearing these?
Seems men and women aren’t all that proud of their abortions when it comes right down to it. Many proaborts avoid answering when you ask them under the “it’s none of your business” category. If abortion doesn’t hurt women and it is so great for our gender, why is it such a personal question? I just asked CC yesterday to tell us the circumstances surrounding her abortion and don’t see that she did.
I have seen the damage that abortion has directly done to people I love. I see the differences in those who support vs. those who oppose abortion. I see the differences in those who now have regrets and those who hold firm that aborting their child caused no harm to anyone.
I really don’t think proaborts can see how angry, bitter, hard and cold they come off as. I realize that sometimes we prolifers get upset and angry. Because we are!! Upset and angry that our country legalized the killing of innocent humans.
eh above post should say body autonomy. doug its nothing new under the sun. nothing personal. just the constant circle of opinion. so what about margaret( the real name of the woman i just posted about) let her go fly a kite huh? her abortion her mistake.
Heather, thought you were talking about “lawn booty” for a minute, there. ;)
Okay – yes, that’s right, it’s differing opinions. For Margaret, I hope she feels better; I don’t want her to suffer. From what you said, it certainly looks like she regrets having an abortion.
No, not “go fly a kite.” If she needed to talk to somebody, and you two talked, then good. It may be that she could benefit from therapy, counseling, etc.
im sad our country legalized it. also doug some bitter angry women stay in denial about their abortion. thats what keeps them from peace. you can scream it from the rooftops ” im glad i had an abortion.” BUT why are you chain smoking? why are you taking all those meds? why are you abusing alcohol? why are you using illegal drugs? because your soul is fractured! abortion is not natural.
I’m correct, too. Some men regret hitting their wives and some don’t. Whether a man regrets hitting his wife or doesn’t will never change the fact that hitting one’s wife is morally wrong.
Praxedes, there, I don’t think there is much real argument. Same for a wife hitting a husband. I’ve seen some of those “Cops” type shows that had women really laying a wallopping on a guy….
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I’ve seen the signs. “I regret my abortion” “Women regret abortion”. I have also seen the men who have signs saying, “I regret lost fatherhood.” These are true statements. Maybe you’d be happy if the signs said, “SOME women regret abortion” in spite of all of us knowing that some women don’t regret their abortions — like some men don’t regret abusing others?
It’s not a matter of me “being happy” or not. It’s just the fact that anecdotal stuff does not necessarily apply to all people or even most people. Saying, “I regret having an abortion” is fine with me, just as is saying they don’t. Has nothing necessarily to do with what most people feel, or with what another given person will feel.
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This doesn’t change the fact that I also know there are women (Gloria Steinem) who proudly wear their tees that state “I had an abortion” and drink java from their “I love abortion” mugs however I have only seen this on the internet not in public or on bumper stickers. I’ve yet to see a sign or shirt saying, “I’m proud my wife aborted” and “It’s cool my girlfriend had an abortion” What do you think the feminists would think if men started wearing these?
Good question. There might well be objections from feminists on the grounds that it sounds like the guys are putting their own desires above those of the women involved. While I don’t think guys would really “be proud” their wives had abortions, just like it’s not really a matter of pride they had unwanted pregnancies, obviously – many guys are glad, on balance, that their wives and girlfriends had abortions. Same as women, they may not be ready to have kids.
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Seems men and women aren’t all that proud of their abortions when it comes right down to it. Many proaborts avoid answering when you ask them under the “it’s none of your business” category.
Well yeah, I don’t think “pride” is really involved. Being relieved that they aren’t pregnant anymore would not necessarily involve that. Is somebody “proud” of having an unwanted pregnancy, in the first place? I wouldn’t think so, unless there were some fairly strange circumstances involved. Somebody has a car wreck, and gets medical treatment in the hospital. Are they going to be “proud” of it? No – that really isn’t going to come into it. They’re probably darn glad they got treated, though, and probably wish they’d never had the wreck in the first place, same as I’d think most women who have abortions would rather have not gotten pregnant.
If abortion doesn’t hurt women and it is so great for our gender, why is it such a personal question? I just asked CC yesterday to tell us the circumstances surrounding her abortion and don’t see that she did.
Who do you see saying that “abortion doesn’t hurt women,” just like that? I don’t see anybody saying that. It would be just as false as claiming that it does hurt women, without qualification. Is it “so great for people” to have car wrecks and get injured, then medically treated? No, not really. But it’s vastly preferable to not getting treated, and for many women with unwanted pregnancies, having the legal option of abortion is vastly preferable to not having it.
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I have seen the damage that abortion has directly done to people I love. I see the differences in those who support vs. those who oppose abortion. I see the differences in those who now have regrets and those who hold firm that aborting their child caused no harm to anyone.
I really don’t think proaborts can see how angry, bitter, hard and cold they come off as. I realize that sometimes we prolifers get upset and angry. Because we are!! Upset and angry that our country legalized the killing of innocent humans.
Nobody can rationally say that “having an abortion will cause no women to have regrets.” Hey, life isn’t like that – there are an unlimited number of things we may do or not do where regrets may later be in the picture. That regrets can and do come to some people choosing a given thing is not reason enough to make it illegal, necessarily, however.
I fully believe that you feel just as you say you do. Likewise, other people get upset and angry at the thought of not letting a woman with an unwanted pregnancy have an abortion. It’s not being “hard and cold,” it’s just empathizing with the pregnant woman. I think there is at least as much of a case there – as you seem to be empathizing with the unborn, where there’s a valid question if empathy is even possible, since to a point in gestation the unborn can’t suffer, have no emotions, etc.
also doug some bitter angry women stay in denial about their abortion. thats what keeps them from peace.
Heather, I agree that what you say is true for some women. In no way am I saying that abortion is or would be the right choice for all pregnant women. Yeah, some women are in denial about how they feel, and some others are in denial about the fact that some women really don’t regret having an abortion, overall.
“I just asked CC yesterday to tell us the circumstances surrounding her abortion and don’t see that she did”
I believe I did something that might have induced a miscarriage. At least that was the desired intent although I don’t know if all I had was a late and unusually heavy period. I knew, from the time I was a teen, that I didn’t ever want to become a mother. Thus, the thought of being pregnant was horrific. A pregnancy would have been inconvenient – there, I said it. The sperm donor was an abusive psycho case and even if I had been the maternal type, there was no way that I would risk giving birth to a child who might have inherited the his and my family’s mental health issues. I also didn’t have the money to pay for a procedure done by a doctor. If abortion had been legal, I would have gone directly to Planned Parenthood.
Didn’t need it. Didn’t want it. Too bad I had to take matters into my own hands but I was one of many women who did the same thing – some with unhealthy consequences like my friend who douched with an acne medication. But don’t worry, be happy cuz there will be lots more of this kind of thing if abortion is criminalized.
I know that you think that I’m in “post abortive” denial but the reality is that I don’t regret it for a minute.
cc you probably didnt even have an abortion. you just had mental problems.
you mean to tell me cc that it was never confirmed you were pregnant? then how on earth can you tell everyone here you had an abortion? it would be like me saying i was pretty sure i had breast cancer so i cut off my breasts!
and im sure youre aware that margot kidder had a lysol abortion and linda elerbee had a poison douche abortion performed by a woman in a seedy motel bathroom. did you know elerbee had to have a double mastectomy because she was striken with breast cancer? margot kidder had a nervous breakdown and was found cowering in a neighbors woodpile. sounds like these 2 needed support not abortion.
cc by you saying youre in post abortive denial would be like me saying my breast cancer is in remission ( but im not sure i had it )
“Hey, life isn’t like that – there are an unlimited number of things we may do or not do where regrets may later be in the picture.”
Hey, your right it isn’t, we see all those signs that women hold that say, “I regret I burned my loveseat” when they really could have kept it or given it away instead. How patronizing you can be, Doug.
Thanks CC for sharing your maybe abortion story. Did you ever think that by having sex with a “sperm donor” that you were risking having someone donate sperm to you?
There are mental health issues in my family, my ex’s family, my current husband’s family. No family is immune to mental or physical issues. The only guarantee is there is no guarantee. I guess no one should have children.
“I know that you think that I’m in “post abortive” denial but the reality is that I don’t regret it for a minute.”
Then what exactly is your purpose for coming here? To tout, “Rah, rah, I think I might have aborted my child! Rah, rah!”
There is a lot of help for mental health issues. Abortion is not one of them.
cc perhaps by you believing that you had this possible abortion perhaps your mental health has declined? i would never make fun of someone with mental problems. as praxedes has pointed out most everyone in the world has something that could fit the “mental health” illness department. maybe you would get well if you changed your staunch stoic pro abortion views.
“Nobody can rationally say that “having an abortion will cause no women to have regrets.” Hey, life isn’t like that – there are an unlimited number of things we may do or not do where regrets may later be in the picture. That regrets can and do come to some people choosing a given thing is not reason enough to make it illegal, necessarily, however.”
Praxedes: Hey, your right it isn’t, we see all those signs that women hold that say, “I regret I burned my loveseat” when they really could have kept it or given it away instead. How patronizing you can be, Doug.
Oh good grief – what did I say that’s “patronizing”? It is true that for all manner of decisions, there are no guarantees there will be no regrets. That does not mean we should make them illegal for people, though.
If there is a “patronizing” attitude at work, perhaps it’s pretending that people don’t see the difference between the abortion issue and burning loveseats, the latter of which does not quite have the same social prominence.
Oh good grief – you are patronizing women who regret their abortions when you state people regret many things in their lives. Women are not carrying around signs regretting other things.
Women regret their abortions because they come to the realization that their CHILD DIED DURING their abortion and they were duped by people like you, many times men, that abortion is a healthy choice.
praxedes amen. doug can SAY anything but i SAW margaret crying in a heap almost dry heaving. should i have patted her back and told her “its okay but not all women regret them.”????? yeah. the woman was grieving for her dead daughter and it can never be undone. she said her regret began the very day of the abortion.
praxedes bingo again. margaret was going with a much younger guy who told her if she didnt abort he was leaving. he told her he couldnt handle a kid at that time in his life. she aborted and he stuck around for another 2 months and began dating a younger girl. so now we have a broken mother a dead baby and a free man!
“doug can SAY anything but i SAW margaret crying in a heap almost dry heaving.”
Right, and I and my girlfriend, who aborted on Saturday morning, went to a Dave Matthews concert Saturday night. No big whoop.
And BTW, the moderator doesn’t like links to RH Reality check articles that dispute the women regret abortions meme.
“maybe you would get well if you changed your staunch stoic pro abortion views”
So being pro-choice is a mental health disorder? Really? Perhaps you could quote the DSM IV section which cites this.
oh cc i thought you were an elderly woman for some reason. im pretty sure you didnt self abort. no big whoop.
Doug, how can I debate you? You’re hopeless. I can’t instill the basic sense of right and wrong in you. I can’t explain what a moral compass is to you when you haven’t got one. If you can’t see how the unborn ARE innocent (which is the whole argument against abortion, and is, btw, why some pro-lifers are against abortion but pro-death penalty) and thats why abortion is wrong, then… where do I go from there?
If you can’t see how it doesn’t MATTER if the unborn are in the woman’s body, that the unborn are where they are SUPPOSED to be and are ALIVE and HUMAN and ALL OF THESE reasons are reasons why killing them is wrong then how can I adequately explain it to you? If there are no absolutes in your universe, if there is never right and wrong but ever changing truths and values… well then God help you. I cannot.
who is dave matthews? who cares. i went to a concert pregnant.
hey cc…you stand to be corrected on something you asked me. you asked if my son would have a bat mitzvah…um thats for a girl. its bar mitzvah for a boy. i know you wish you were Jewish but you cant even get that right. you cant hang with us…and what is so great about RI? ive never heard a thing.
Praxedes: Oh good grief – you are patronizing women who regret their abortions when you state people regret many things in their lives. Women are not carrying around signs regretting other things.
Okay – I can see how you would say that, there. I’m not saying that those women “only regret” having an abortion, like they might regret the choice of a loveseat, though. As I’ve said many times – I accept that they feel as they say they do. The point remains that those feelings do not necessarily mean we should outlaw the choice for everybody. In no way is it patronizing to say that.
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Women regret their abortions because they come to the realization that their CHILD DIED DURING their abortion and they were duped by people like you, many times men, that abortion is a healthy choice.
You are mixing up several things there. There is no “duping” going on. Nobody is saying that having an abortion is right for everybody. No, it’s not going to be right for every woman, nor every woman with an unwanted pregnancy. It’s right for some, and wrong for some, and that’s regardless of whether they think of the unborn as “children.” Some people think that, and still have abortions, and some people don’t think that, and still continue the pregnancy. You are trying to characterize it as if “it’s only one way,” and that is just not true.
“doug can SAY anything but i SAW margaret crying in a heap almost dry heaving.”
CC: Right, and I and my girlfriend, who aborted on Saturday morning, went to a Dave Matthews concert Saturday night. No big whoop.
Indeed – the point being, yet again, that one person’s experience in no way will be true for everybody, or for a given number of people, or even for another given individual, necessarily.
Is that really a hard thing to grasp?
Heather, I accept what you say about Margaret. I’ve never said anything against her, or that she shouldn’t feel that way. If she does, she does.
ive been here since 06 and doug has always debated like hal. they arent bad guys BUT they debate on opnions of their own and that doesnt amount to a hill of beans my friends!
“i know you wish you were Jewish but you cant even get that right. you cant hang with us…and what is so great about RI? ive never heard a thing.”
Oh wow, you found a typo. I’m impressed. Yes, I know that a male child has a Bar Mitzvah and the female has a Bat Mitzvah as I’ve been to both ceremonies. But you didn’t answer the question, is your son going to have a Bar Mitzvah? And did you celebrate Hanukkah? Do you do a Seder? Thing is that you can’t face the reality that according to all polling data, the majority of American Jews are pro-choice. Many of them are active with Planned Parenthood BOD’s. But as with your anecdotal data on women regretting their abortions, you base your data on Jews based on your husband. (BTW, were you married in a synagogue?)
And RI is a beautiful state founded on liberty of conscience. We have a number of fine colleges and the Ivy League Brown University which has an excellent medical school. We have Narragansett Bay and the Atlantic Ocean along which are wonderful beaches. Newport was the home of many wealthy Americans whose mansions are tourist destinations. Given our ethnic diversity, we have a diversity of rich culture and cuisines. We have “Water Fire.” We have a pro-choice legislature and governor.
You don’t know anything about RI? Seriously? Are you that insulated and unaware?
Sydney: Doug, how can I debate you? You’re hopeless. I can’t instill the basic sense of right and wrong in you. I can’t explain what a moral compass is to you when you haven’t got one.
Sydney, if you are stuck on pretending that “only your way” is reflective of what is “right and wrong,” then no, you can’t really “debate” other people, there, because you are beginning with an assumption that is not true.
Not everybody agrees with you, that is all. It’s not that “they lack moral compasses,” it’s that they value the freedom of the pregnant woman, and if it’s enough that they think abortion should remain legal, then they’re on the other side of the argument from you.
If somebody says that pro-lifers “are hopeless,” and “don’t have a moral compass,” and can’t “have a basic sense of right and wrong instilled in them,” are you going to agree with that? I doubt it, and it would not be true, anyway, any more than it is for me or pro-choicers in general.
You more value the life of the unborn than you do the woman being legally okay to have an abortion. Some others value things differently than you, me for one. Do I think we need every single pregnancy continued, to the extent that as a society we say it’s illegal for a woman to have an abortion. No, I do not.
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If you can’t see how the unborn ARE innocent (which is the whole argument against abortion, and is, btw, why some pro-lifers are against abortion but pro-death penalty) and thats why abortion is wrong, then… where do I go from there?
Where did you start from? Do you see me saying the unborn are “guilty,” in the first place?
Hey – I have no problem with people being pro-life and for the death penalty. Nothing inherently contradictory there.
It’s really *not* that pro-choicers are saying “abortion is okay because the unborn are guilty.” An unwanted pregnancy doesn’t have to involve guilt or “not innocence.”
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If you can’t see how it doesn’t MATTER if the unborn are in the woman’s body, that the unborn are where they are SUPPOSED to be and are ALIVE and HUMAN and ALL OF THESE reasons are reasons why killing them is wrong then how can I adequately explain it to you? If there are no absolutes in your universe, if there is never right and wrong but ever changing truths and values… well then God help you. I cannot.
Well, it’s mattered for thousands of years that the unborn are inside the body of a person. Of course I’m not saying the unborn should “be somewhere else,” as far as biological processes, but that is not what the abortion debate is about. There are no “absolutes” about killing, in the first place. Is there a good enough reason for it, or not? That’s the question. In some situations you’ll say yes, and in some, no, and along the way there may be lots of people that disagree with you.
I understand that you probably feel exasperated. I’m not saying that “people should be against life.” I’m saying that it’s not only the consideration of the unborn life in the abortion argument, that there most certainly is the pregnant woman to consider too.
ive been here since 06 and doug has always debated like hal. they arent bad guys BUT they debate on opnions of their own and that doesnt amount to a hill of beans my friends!
It’s all opinion, Heather. That’s what morality is. Without mental conception, without desires, without feelings of “should” and “should not,” what morality could there be?
Doug, it isn’t “my way”. Why do you think I believe in it… cause I came up with this? Even if I didn’t believe it the unborn would still be human and alive and innocent and abortion would still be immoral and would still hurt women. Because ITS TRUTH. Not because I believe it.
It didn’t become truth the day Sydney M. believed it. It was always true.
I know you’re not gonna agree with me on this but right is right and wrong is wrong. It isn’t subjective. It doesn’t change based on people’s opinions.
“Because ITS TRUTH. Not because I believe it.” – wrong. Not all of these things are THE truth, some are YOUR truth, because you believe it. Some of them are highly subjective.
“right is right and wrong is wrong. It isn’t subjective. It doesn’t change based on people’s opinions.” – so was it right or wrong that women couldn’t vote? Is it right or wrong that they can now? Was it right or wrong that people of different races couldn’t wed? Is it right or wrong that they can now?
lol first of all i dont know how to do the little thumb up thing but if cc isnt giving doug 15 thumbs up on everything then hes giving them to himself. nothing he has said is even near logical. are you serious? that would be like me saying there are ufo’s on mars and getting 20 likes on that. again lol!
here is an example. i was reading a poll the other day about the 10 ugliest women on tv. the top 5 were nancy grace whoopie goldberg cher kathy griffen and the housekeeper on 2 and a half men. i personally dont think any of these women are ugly but number 1 was berta from 2 and a half men. okay now thats an opinion from people who took the poll. that doesnt make it fact.
Reality, to you this will sound absurd but all that is right and wrong is based on what God says, not public opinion. It was God who said murder is wrong. Not me. Not society. God.
God never said women couldn’t vote, so no, I don’t think that was right. God never said that interracial couples couldn’t marry (in fact Moses was in an interracial marriage). So that wasn’t right either.
This is the thing, when people make up what is right or wrong apart from God’s Word it will always be stupid and oppressive like women not voting and interracial relationships frowned upon.
I know you’ll huff and roll your eyes and spout off how not everyone believes in God… okay. But it doesn’t change the fact that right and wrong comes from God. He created us and instilled in us the moral compass (conscience) that lets us know when we’re off base, if only we’d listen to it.
You believe that your moral compass comes from your god. That’s it.
There are things which your bible says are wrong yet you still do. Selective adherence.
There are things which your bible says are wrong yet you still do. Selective adherence.
Yeah, we all have “selective adherence.”
In the Bible, it’s referred to as “sin.”
Which is why God needed to redeem us because we are sinful and could not keep His law on our own merits. Jesus Christ kept His law perfectly and paid our fine, offering us forgiveness and bridging the path back to God.
The fact is that God’s law is perfect and we are not. It’s not really “selective adherence,” it’s human failure – sin. That doesn’t change God’s standards in the least.
I know, I probably just wasted a post.
Kel, you would be well aware that there are many instances in the bible where certain behaviors warranted punishments up to and including death which even quite fervent followers of christ no longer decry and even practice. Are these all ‘sins’?
Heather: lol first of all i dont know how to do the little thumb up thing but if cc isnt giving doug 15 thumbs up on everything then hes giving them to himself. nothing he has said is even near logical. are you serious? that would be like me saying there are ufo’s on mars and getting 20 likes on that. again lol!
Hardeeharhar.
Heather, I clicked on the little “thumbs-up” symbol for your post. That’s how you do it, by the way. ;)
Now you have 1 “Like.” And I clicked on it more than that, I clicked on it like a big, rabid, dog, over and over like it was all I wanted to do for the next few minutes. You know what – it only gives you one vote, girlfriend. You didn’t know that? What planet are you living on? ;) :)
You talk about what I have said…. What, exactly are you referring to? Can you even quote one thing that you have a legitimate grievance with, as far as it not being “even near logical”? Well, no, you don’t.
With all due respect, you can blather on and on about other people, but how often do you really respond to what was actually said?
Sydney: Doug, it isn’t “my way”. Why do you think I believe in it… cause I came up with this? Even if I didn’t believe it the unborn would still be human and alive and innocent and abortion would still be immoral and would still hurt women. Because ITS TRUTH. Not because I believe it.
Yes, it is your way, Sydney, regardless of any and all things you might attribute it to. “Human” is physical reality, not morality, and that’s not what the debate is about. Who do you see saying the unborn are “guilty”? You have your say, same as anything else, but the appeal to “IT’S TRUTH” is a logical fallacy.
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It didn’t become truth the day Sydney M. believed it. It was always true.
And of course anybody can say the same about their own subjective beliefs.
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I know you’re not gonna agree with me on this but right is right and wrong is wrong. It isn’t subjective. It doesn’t change based on people’s opinions.
Who, unless they shared your own subjective opinions, would not disagree with you, if they were in their right mind?
Somebody else comes in here – posts on the message boards at Jill’s site – and proclaims that their beliefs (quite different from yours) are “absolutely true,” and “right beyond all belief,” well – you’d probably shoot them down right away, and rightly so. Same deal for you.
Kel: I know, I probably just wasted a post.
Kel, I don’t know – I hope not. I think we all assume we are separate consciousnesses, separate mental and physical entities…? Yet you do realize that other people, who don’t share your unprovable beliefs, and/or who don’t make the same assumptions you do, will not necessarily agree with you, right?
If somebody else claims their position is “from God,” or “from the gods” or otherwise external or absolute, what are you going to say to them?
In the end, the truth is that we all are having our say, regardless of any and all attribution we might make for our opinions.
Heather: here is an example. i was reading a poll the other day about the 10 ugliest women on tv. the top 5 were nancy grace whoopie goldberg cher kathy griffen and the housekeeper on 2 and a half men.
Heather, this is hilarious.
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i personally dont think any of these women are ugly but number 1 was berta from 2 and a half men. okay now thats an opinion from people who took the poll. that doesnt make it fact.
So, Missy, exactly just what makes a woman “ugly”? For one thing – ;) – is it with or without makeup? :)
I don’t even know who “Berta” is, but here too, it’s all opinion. If we state from the outset what is desired, then we may make a logical progression to what would follow, but unless we all agree, then there’s not going to be one answer for us all.
Kel, you would be well aware that there are many instances in the bible where certain behaviors warranted punishments up to and including death which even quite fervent followers of christ no longer decry and even practice. Are these all ‘sins’?
If you would care to list them, I would be happy to do my best to explain my understanding.
Yet you do realize that other people, who don’t share your unprovable beliefs, and/or who don’t make the same assumptions you do, will not necessarily agree with you, right?
Golly, no, Doug. I had no idea that not everyone agreed with my Christian beliefs. (What I wanted to say was “Well, duh.” Maybe I should’ve just left it at that.)
And my comments were in direct response to reality’s statement of “selective adherence.” These kinds of comments typically come from people who don’t understand the Bible nor do they make any true effort to do so. This is why I even bothered to speak about the Biblical perspective – because it was relevant to the discussion.
If somebody else claims their position is “from God,” or “from the gods” or otherwise external or absolute, what are you going to say to them?
Doug, do you personally believe that there is any sort of external standard of absolute Truth?
Just because someone claims something doesn’t make it true. You can believe there’s no evidence for my “unprovable” beliefs, but well – wouldn’t that be you making a statement of absolute certainty?
I don’t honestly have time or desire to go on the Doug merry go round today – or any other, for that matter.
This blog has become overrun with people who would rather slam Christianity and Christians and see preborn “non entities” killed because they think they have an absolute (ha! there’s that word!) right to do so. It actually makes me feel like I need a frickin’ shower.
Yet you do realize that other people, who don’t share your unprovable beliefs, and/or who don’t make the same assumptions you do, will not necessarily agree with you, right?
Oh, and another thing:
For those of you who continue to say things like “Not everyone believes what you do, and not everyone agrees with you” –
you realize that works both ways, right, geniuses?
Kel: For those of you who continue to say things like “Not everyone believes what you do, and not everyone agrees with you” – you realize that works both ways, right, geniuses?
Kel, most definitely! :) There’s still a difference between giving one’s opinion, as one’s opinion, and ascribing it to unprovable external sources or absolutes. But certainly – it’s a given at the very beginning of the abortion debate that people have different beliefs. I’ll try to keep the “merry-go-round” to a minimum number of turns today. :) Gotta get on a plane in about a half hour.
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“If somebody else claims their position is “from God,” or “from the gods” or otherwise external or absolute, what are you going to say to them?”
Doug, do you personally believe that there is any sort of external standard of absolute Truth?
Not as far as morality – I definitely see morality as “in the mind,” i.e. there has to be a mind or minds with desires, feelings of likes and dislikes, or there would not be any morality in the first place. The concepts would not exist. I’d also say my question, above, stands.
I do see “absolute truth” in the fact of consciousness – that’s the one thing “we” or “I” can be sure of, as far as existence. It’s absolutely true to say there is such a thing as consciousness, and absolutely false to say there is no such thing. Beyond that, it’s easy to get into assumptions, even usually impossible not to. The few other areas where I’d posit absolute truth are in logic and mathematics (they may really be the same thing here). If we say “All A are B, and all B are C,” then who can argue with saying that “All A are C,” for example?
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Just because someone claims something doesn’t make it true. You can believe there’s no evidence for my “unprovable” beliefs, but well – wouldn’t that be you making a statement of absolute certainty? I don’t honestly have time or desire to go on the Doug merry go round today – or any other, for that matter.
I’m not asserting that there could never be proof of what you believe, nor of other’s beliefs. There can never be the proof of such a negative. I usually say, “beliefs that cannot be proven to be anything more than imaginary.” I don’t claim “there is no God” or “there are no gods.” Again – there can be no proof of such. That’s why I disagree with atheism.
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This blog has become overrun with people who would rather slam Christianity and Christians and see preborn “non entities” killed because they think they have an absolute (ha! there’s that word!) right to do so. It actually makes me feel like I need a frickin’ shower.
Well, I don’t say the unborn are non-entities. The unborn are definitely to be considered in the abortion argument, as are pregnant women. Also don’t say there is any “absolute right” to have abortions. There are no such rights, period. I’m not meaning to slam Christianity, and anyway – if Tim Tuborg keeps throwing interceptions rather than touchdown passes – some of that should die down anyway.