(Prolifer)ations 9-21-07
On the pro-life blogs….
Gotta start with a fantastic find by Big Blue Wave: Bono’s explanation of grace vs. karma. Wow. BBW also found in a Muslim Q&A how they are to view abortion….
What a Godincidence. Elizabeth Andrew has posted a video of a dramatic portrayal of grace, Jesus’ love, and the difference between Him and the world. Made me cry. You may not be familiar with Christian artistic dance dramas. Elizabeth said, “For the first few seconds I was like, ‘what?’ but then I was completely enthralled.” My church uses this medium a few times a year, which helps to get the point across a different way.
Did you know that when mayor of NY in 1996, Rudy Giuliani proclaimed a “Planned Parenthood Day,” praising its eugenicist founder, Margaret Sanger? Of course, The Truth About Margaret Sanger knew.
Nathan Sheets reports what feminists are saying about the federal bill US Senator Sam Brownback introduced Thursday that would require an abortionist to perform an ultrasound and allow the mother to view it before committing an abortion.
Abortion proponents have also been saying, “What happens in Aurora happens to me,” re: the fight over PP’s deceptively built mill. Nathan explains why what happens in Aurora happens to all pro-lifers, too.
Vital Signs reports on the rare decision in the Second Circuit Federal Court of Appeals Friday to oust NY Judge Noel Ferris (pictured left) who denied a Chinese man asylum in a forced abortion case and ridiculed him in court for crying.
Real Choices blogger Christina’s nephew was in a terrible accident, and she would appreciate prayers.
Christina also linked to a link of this Septemberr 20 LifeSiteNews.com story: “As of May 11, 2007… 1,637 adverse [HPV] vaccination reactions [were] reported to the FDA…. [A] subsequent request for information… covering the period from May 2007 to September 2007, found that an additional 1800 adverse reactions have been reported, including more deaths. Exactly how many more deaths occurred will be released in the coming days….”
Mark Pickup has a good reminder piece, “The gentle art of interdependence.”
Fr. Frank Pavone draws a parallel between a September 20 USA Today front page article about war survivors to abortion survivors, such as “feeling gilty that their lives were spared at the expense of someone else’s life, and about how they feel pressured to make their lives worthy of that sacrifice. There is anger, anxiety, and an overall unsettled feeling.”
Andrew at Catholic Pro-Life Committee has posted a short document John Paul II wrote the American bishops in 1999. “This short document, as far as I know, has received almost no attention in any sphere and was never given any intial attention,” writes Andrew. “I have never seen it read or referenced in any pro-life circles…. But the more I read it, the more I come to see this document as one of the most important for the church in America today.”
La Shawn Barber has posted her take on the med student wanting a “mammary break,” a controversy I spotlighted September 13.
Marybeth Hagan over at Prolifeblogs has been window shopping at PP’s online store to view its latest products. “Top on my list of creepy items from America’s busiest abortion provider is the ‘birds & the bees one piece/infant gown’ that Planned Parenthood sells for ‘your favorite baby or toddler,'” reports Marybeth. The top of my list of appalling items were the “School Supply Kit” for back to school teens and the “Does Size Matter?” ruler.
Not Dead Yet reveals a “glaring error” in Reuters coverage of the Vatican’s statement on feeding and hydrating persons in vegetative states.
Nationalproliferadio has a piece on how college campuses are becoming “front lines” in the pro-life battle.
At Mother May I… Be Born Marybeth spotlights PP’s attempt on its website to say abortion and miscarriage are “slightly different forms of the same experience.”
JivinJehoshaphat, who does a (Prolifer)ations wrap-up of news of interest to pro-lifers every day, reports how adult stem cell research can get as much media attention as human embryo experimentation: if the stem cells are testicular.
I’m sorry I missed the Generations for Life post promoting Youth for Truth’s September 19 meeting. But I’m glad Y4T has remained actively involved in the fight against PP Aurora.
Forest Nymph has a good eye for underreported news. She links to an article on a study showing Australians are pro-choice yet anti-abortion, a common finding I see in America. She also links to a story that the Vatican is open to excommunicating scientists who participate in human embryo stem cell research.
MInTheGap defends Southwest Airlines literal cover-up of immodest women and spotlights the furor in Australia over the pick of 12-year-old Maddison Gabriel (pictured left) as the official ambassador of Gold Coast Fashion Week.
Flashpoint editorializes on the recent Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice report on what they term “the medical right,” the scientific counterpart to the “religious right.” “The issue of the RCRC is that certain views, what they term fundamentalist biblical values, are having a real influence on the American people and the public square,” begins Sarah at FP.
A guest blogger at Dawn Patrol notes the typo in PP’s press release on its loss in court to open the Aurora mill despite a criminal investigation into its fraud. Omitted was the word “abortion” in the list of services it would provide there.
Culture Campaign explains the “inconvenient truth about organ donation.”
Mark Crutcher has written a good commentary on “The scam of moral irrelevance.”
Hey guys, I promise I’m not dead…just moving. I should be able to get back here starting next week.
That video was incredible! I’ve never seen “Christian artistic dance” but I couldn’t help crying as well.
“Lake of Fire” is being released to home video October 3rd. Revise your Netflix queue.
Tony Kaye (American History X) spent TWELVE YEARS making the 2 1/2-hour documentary about abortion in America.
It’s won several major film festival awards, and looks like it’s destined for an Oscar.
I haven’t seen it because – like all documentaries – it was in limited release, and I was too lazy to drive to LA. Every personal and published review I’ve taken in seems to find “Lake of Fire” the most even-handed piece ever done on the subject. (I know that fringe elements on both the pro-life and pro-choice sides of the argument were offended at how they were portrayed. It must be dead-on accurate…)
12 years old?
Holy Crow…..
That was a really good video. Like Elizabeth, it took me a while to get into it. Jesus is so good!
Mark Crutcher’s observations are right-on and well-stated,as usual. Thank you for the link, and I look forward to checking out the others.
Which somehow reminds me, Bethany, thank you so much for your article on Population Control or choice awhile back. The Population Control crowd also loves to dress up in false but attractive linguistic cover any pernicious, foul, abominable thing that furthers their agenda of population control; e.g.,of killing off all the “surplus” population (note that this category never includes any of them) who are allegedly sucking mother earth’s precious resources dry.
Thus, the slogan “Celebrate Diversity” (a code phrase meaning “tolerate any kind of destructive sexual perversion that comes down the pike”) is to the promotion of homosexual sodomy (and the corresponding criminalization of anyone who decries it) what “Freedom of Choice” (a code phrase meaning “Let doctors kill instead of treat unborn children, and exploit, maim and kill their mothers via induced abortion) is to the promotion and perpetration of child-killing.
Both are patently false. Real diversity, as in Male and female created He them/”vive la difference” and it’s ultimate celebration, devoted, committed, monogamous, heterosexual marriage, are denigrated by the left because they breed the two things they hate most: more people, and familial loyalties that compete with total allegiance to the totalitarian, socialist state they foolishly insist upon calling “utopia.”
Homosexual sodomy is a P.C. freak’s dream; those ensnared in it die young(the median age of death for a practicing male sodomite is 45), they don’t reproduce, they spread deadly std’s, and they recruit young teenagers, especially, into their own desperate, barren deathdance. Sometimes they go even further; when I was about 11 or 12, a schoolmate of mine was found, along with two of his peers, stripped from the waist down, sodomized and stabbed to death. The perpetrator turned out (surprise, surprise!) to be an adult male sodomite employed by a local ice cream parlor that was, at the time,a popular after-school,after-game hangout for kids from elementary through high school.(It’s popularity waned considerably after this incident; I don’t think it stayed open a month after this predator was convicted.) Around that same time, two other schoolboys, brothers, suffered a similar fate; they were found with their genitals practically chewn off. CAN ANYBODY SAY HATE CRIME?! This was years ago; but all you will hear about now in connection with “hate crimes” are cases like Matthew Shepard, despite the fact that Shepard was not legally murdered, and he was not murdered on account of his sexual perversion.
Abortion on demand is rabidly anti-choice in that it is typically an act of desperation, not free volition, on the part of the mother involved; it is never the choice of it’s first victim, the child whose life is deliberately targeted. Dead people don’t have any choices, and murder itself is the ultimate denial of choice to the victims of the murderer. Legalized abortion on demand was never put before the American voters to decide; it was a raw act of judicial fiat imposed on us by 7 men, all of whom had already been born, and none of whom would be injured or killed by it.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, co-founder of NARAL who coined the pro-abortion slogans “Freedom of choice”, and “Women must have control over their own bodies”, which remain the rallying cries of proaborts everywhere, later repented his involvement in childkilling, and confessed, “I remember laughing when we made those slogans up,” … “We were looking for some sexy, catchy slogans to capture public opinion. They were very cynical slogans then, just as all of these slogans today are very, very cynical.”
Hate crimes legislation is not about protecting sodomites; they are killing themselves, and the best way to protect them and others is to criminalize their destructive sexual activity. The chief goal of hate crimes legislation is, and has always been, the criminalization of any loyalty, tie, allegiance to any higher authority than the state; it’s whole point is, thus, to legislate idolatry.
All this I knew or surmised, Bethany, but I was not aware of Frederick Jaffee’s stated, diabolical plan for population reduction until I read your article. Thanks for handing me the smoking gun…better late than never!
Lifelynx, thank you for reading it!
I was also shocked when I had read about Frederick Jaffee’s plan for population reduction…especially shocked by the idea to add a substance to people’s drinking water to make more of them infertile. I did provide references, because many thought it was a false claim, but it wasn’t. It’s really shocking to see the lengths they’ll go to to ‘control’ what they see as a population ‘problem’.
If you’re ever interested, pick up the book “Inside Planned Parenthood”. I found some of that information along with MUCH more in there. Very interesting and chock full of reliable references.
Who wrote, publishes, or markets “Inside Planned Parenthood”? I have several editions of George Grant’s expose Grand Illusions and Blessed are the Barren, but I am not familiar with this one, and it sounds like a must-read reference.
Thanks again!
when I was about 11 or 12, a schoolmate of mine was found, along with two of his peers, stripped from the waist down, sodomized and stabbed to death. The perpetrator turned out (surprise, surprise!) to be an adult male sodomite employed by a local ice cream parlor that was, at the time,a popular after-school,after-game hangout for kids from elementary through high school.(It’s popularity waned considerably after this incident; I don’t think it stayed open a month after this predator was convicted.) Around that same time, two other schoolboys, brothers, suffered a similar fate; they were found with their genitals practically chewn off.
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“Chewn off?”
Where and when did this happen? You could easily give us the year and the city where this took place.
Life Lynx really needs to learn the difference between a homosexual, a pedophile, and a sociopath.
I could, Laura, and I can just as easily withhold it, as I normally do from people I have cause to think don’t actually care about the case or its entailments, but only want to attack the messenger of a message they don’t like, as you have repeatedly done.
“Chewn off” was the language of choice used by the highly educated, literate friend of the victims’ mother who related this incident to me; she is a published poetess, with a son who taught college level English Literature until his sudden, tragic death a few years ago.
You might do as well to acquaint yourself with the overlappings between sodomites, pedophiles and sociopaths, but you aren’t likely to do so with your blatantly visceral animus towards anyone who even recognizes them. Grow up. I’ve given more than sufficient details of these accounts for any honest person of conscience who cares about homosexuals, children, or society in general, and I am not obligated to gratify your disingenous and mean-spirited, idle curiosity.
I’m sure you will throw the usual ad hominem tantrums in response to this post; but I have deliberately not posted the time or place of these crimes because I have no reason to think that they were peculiar to a certain time or place, or that the predatory nature of sexual perversion has changed, or that the children of any time or place, are less deserving of being protected than the boys whose grisly, untimely deaths I have just related; they are just less likely to get what they deserve from a society increasingly browbeaten into cowtowing to the demands of people who only want fewer children to exist, no matter what it takes to reduce their numbers and for those reasons, I will continue to withhold any further information on these cases even if you huff and puff, cast more aspersions, and threaten to turn blue.
For the record, I have, in several of my own personal careers, worked and dealt with enough practicing sodomites to believe that while not all of them would commit atrocities like these,
few of them would cry foul; and it is a simple fact of life that the fires of sexual passion, when they break out of the protective grate placed around them by the laws of the holy, just, wise and loving God of the Bible, destructively burn many more people than they constructively warm; they become increasingly ravenous and predatory.
Any thoughtful sifting among the ashheap thus created will uncover many more victims of sexual predators including, but not limited to, most aborted children, thousands who have died from AIDS and other stds, many more corpses like the ones I wrote about here than the pro-sodomy crowd cares to admit, and many more, like a woman I knew who died a few years ago; she drank herself to death trying to medicate the pain of betrayal by a perfidious husband. While the scriptures plainly and justly state that anyone who commits sexual sin sins against his/her own body, no sin is an island, and there are no real victimless sexual crimes.
That said, Bethany, where were we before so rudely interrupted? Ah, yes;
Who wrote, publishes, or markets “Inside Planned Parenthood”? I have several editions of George Grant’s expose Grand Illusions and Blessed are the Barren, but I am not familiar with this one, and it sounds like a must-read reference. I have searched the internet, and cannot seem to locate that title, per se. I would appreciate any help you can give me in getting hold of a copy of this book.
Thanks again!
The video was interesting. That is exactly why religion appeals to people and why it used to appeal to me. The idea that there will always be someone there for you is powerful. Ultimately though, it is a lie.
I could, Laura, and I can just as easily withhold it, as I normally do from people I have cause to think don’t actually care about the case or its entailments, but only want to attack the messenger of a message they don’t like, as you have repeatedly done.
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So you lied-
As I’ve often said on this board, stupid people lie poorly. You lie very poorly.
(You also know nothing about gay people, and I assume you haven’t left your home in the last 50 years…)
“”Chewn off” was the language of choice used by the highly educated, literate friend of the victims’ mother who related this incident to me”
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“My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.”
I thought it was really neat when the audience went all crazy when Grace triumphed.
My thought
Leah, it could indeed be asked, “What if you’re wrong?”
If Christians are wrong, and when we die nothing happens, oh well, we’ve tried to live good lives according to good rules and kept evil at bay, perhaps making the world a better place.
But if a nonbeliever is wrong, s/he goes to hell.
In a sideways way, the apostle Peter answered this question. John 6:66-68:
66 At this point many of his disciples turned away and deserted him. 67 Then Jesus turned to the Twelve and asked, “Are you also going to leave?”
68 Simon Peter replied, “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.
Sometimes when faith fails, I look around and come to Peter’s conclusion, “But where else do I have to go?” I know the self-serving, hedonistic lifestyle, is an abyss. Been there. Never want to go back. And I would also find life utterly hopeless and perhaps not worth living if not for the hope I have in Christ.
Jill,
Amen!
From Jill’s link to the Catholic Pro Life Committee above:
“So great is the confusion at times that for many people the difference between good and evil is determined by the opinion of the majority, and even the time-honored havens of human life — the family, law and medicine — are sometimes made to serve the culture of death.”
Join us, Doug, altogether now,
“V-A-L-U-A-T-I-O-N!
Valuation, Valuation!
Rah! Rah! Rah!”
Forgot to give credit to the author of the pasted excerpt.
“John Paul II!
We love you!”
Who wrote, publishes, or markets “Inside Planned Parenthood”? I have several editions of George Grant’s expose Grand Illusions and Blessed are the Barren, but I am not familiar with this one, and it sounds like a must-read reference.
here
This is where I purchased mine. I originally found it at the pregnancy center where I volunteer, and I liked it so much that I purchased my own copy. You can get it for 7.00 used. :-)
Jill,
“If Christians are wrong, and when we die nothing happens, oh well, we’ve tried to live good lives according to good rules and kept evil at bay, perhaps making the world a better place.
But if a nonbeliever is wrong, s/he goes to hell.”
I forget what this is called, but I’m familiar with this argument. Basically, it boils down to that its in a person’s interests to believe in God. If the person believes that there is no God and there really is no God, then he/she simply doesn’t go to heaven and hasn’t lost anything. If the person doesn’t believe in God and there is a God, then the individual in question goes to hell.
There are two problems with this scenario. The first is that it assumes there are no costs to believing in/worshiping a God. That is not true.
The second is which God? There have been lots of gods worshiped at different times throughout human history. So how does one pick? Who’s to say that the God one should believe in is the Christian God instead of Vishnu or even Apollo?
“is an abyss. Been there. Never want to go back.”
Oh, I’ve been there to, before I lost my faith in God.
“And I would also find life utterly hopeless and perhaps not worth living if not for the hope I have in Christ.”
Hope can be found in any place where one wants to find it.
Leah,
“We can believe and we can have faith–or not. In the end, does it really matter if religion is just a lie? People pray and connect to God–whether or not He exists–and get something from it. Maybe you think it is a waste of time, and that is absolutely your right. But in the end, if religion is just a lie, they really haven’t lost anything.”
That is true if you believe that people are not hurt when they devote themselves to furthering something that is not true. That is true if you believe that religion has never led to wars, violence, and genocide. That is only true if religion only produces good.
“So great is the confusion at times that for many people the difference between good and evil is determined by the opinion of the majority, and even the time-honored havens of human life — the family, law and medicine — are sometimes made to serve the culture of death.”
Carder: Join us, Doug, altogether now,
“V-A-L-U-A-T-I-O-N! Valuation, Valuation! Rah! Rah! Rah!”
Sing it, Brother C….. To be serious, though, I’m not much on Straw Man Singalongs.
For many people, on some issues the opinion of the majority is just fine as a determinant. In fact, for most things in society it’s that way, if as individuals we want to be in society. Society does not work if we are constantly banging our heads against it. Bottom line – a society is a bunch of people with things in common.
Not to say that abortion is or has to be that way – there, there’s certainly an argument, for real. I’d say if anything the proof that abortion really isn’t bad, per se, lies in that society continues to go along with the Birth Standard for personhood and rights, as societies have for thousands and thousands of years. People have been having abortions for those thousands and thousands of years, and does that “prevent” societies or prevent us wanting to be in them? No.
“Family life” in no way is necessarily better by continuing a given pregnancy. It varies case-by-case, and there are times when a woman or a couple know that ending a pregnancy is for the best. I know you disagree, but it’s their call.
The law’s clear on it, though there too I know you don’t like the status quo.
Medicine isn’t “morality.” People have been having abortions and miscarriages for a long, long time, and there are always people who are dissatisfied with things.
Doug
Enigma: I forget what this is called, but I’m familiar with this argument. Basically, it boils down to that its in a person’s interests to believe in God. If the person believes that there is no God and there really is no God, then he/she simply doesn’t go to heaven and hasn’t lost anything. If the person doesn’t believe in God and there is a God, then the individual in question goes to hell.
There are two problems with this scenario. The first is that it assumes there are no costs to believing in/worshiping a God. That is not true.
The second is which God? There have been lots of gods worshiped at different times throughout human history. So how does one pick? Who’s to say that the God one should believe in is the Christian God instead of Vishnu or even Apollo?
Enigma – right on. “Pascal’s Wager” is what that’s called. Pascal was a mathematical genius, big on probability calculus. Eight years before his death, he had an accident with a horse-drawn carriage, got into a “religious” state of mind, and spent his last years in a convent where his sister was.
He messed up, though, with the “Wager.” He only looked at one god + afterlife or no belief and no afterlife.
There are a couple other possibilities – no belief and still an afterlife, or some other god or gods with afterlife. So the “Wager” is not a valid deal, logically. Hmm…. is that John McDonnell I sense, looking over my shoulder? ; )
You’re right about the problem of picking the wrong god. There are many different religions, and the probability of picking the “right” one, if there is one, is very small. Mess up, and you would then go to a different religion’s version of hell.
Additionally, many religions have the position that blasphemers will have it worse than those who merely don’t believe. Looking at that, what with the small chance of picking the right god, there would be a higher chance of being punished versus being an atheist.
Maybe Buddhism is the way to bet, if one is going to? That way you get to play again….
Doug
Doug, thanks for the support.
“Maybe Buddhism is the way to bet, if one is going to? That way you get to play again….”
Agreed. The best way to play the game is to beat the system.
Enigma: That is only true if religion only produces good.
You are absolutely right, and for those people who only use their belief in religion to better their lives and the lives of others (obviously not through forcing the idea of their religion down others’ throats… unfortunately, some people consider that “help”), I say that there is no harm done.
But you are right, for people who abuse their religion and try to make others abide by it ((ahem)), that is NOT okay, and quite frankly, it’s counterproductive for them.
I suppose that what I said about religion is applicable to the way I use it and the way I sincerely hope that most people do.
Doug,
First we had Diana and her perpetual bodily autonomy mantra.
Now we have *valuation*. John McD has graciously mentioned “The Cartesian Box” to describe this carousel we’re on (correct me if I’m wrong, John McD). A broken record is more my visualization.
It seems we’re stuck on valuation.
We’ve seen/read how unfettered valuation can go lethally wrong throughout history and not-so recent history. I’ll have to defer to Jacqueline’s marvelous post on the Terri Schiavo thread. So much easier to shift as the wind blows rather than sticking to Truth. Don’t want the kid? Wanna end your life? Doesn’t matter if you can’t defend yourself, cause, guess what? It’s all about valuation.
I know, I know, it’s my valuation that has me writing this. My valuation and not yours. And not his, or not the others. Round and round we go…
That post was me, Carder, not Anonymous. Sorry.
Leah,
I agree with many of your points (ecsp. the ones about not forcing your beliefs down another’s throat).
I disagree that there is not harm done, however. In my opinion, all religion is based on lies. I believe that it harms someone to believe a lie and to base their life upon it.
“I suppose that what I said about religion is applicable to the way I use it and the way I sincerely hope that most people do.”
That I can and do respect. Regardless of my personal beliefs, I generally subscribe to a live-and-let-live attitude. As long as someone isn’t trying to foist their beliefs off on me, I’m fine with whatever anyone wants to believe.
to Laura,
Yes, I thought you would not be able to graciously take no for an answer; self-centered people never can. If you honestly think that I have not left my home in 50 years, or that the crimes I have related here did not happen, it ill behooves you to talk about anyone else’s lying, or anyone else’s stupidity. Not that it’s particularly any of your business, but I have traveled all over the U.S. in the last 5 years, and I have much better things to do with my time than fabricate heinous crimes, slander innocent people, or glamourize pernicious behavior. I’m quite happy with all those things, and I highly recommend them to you. Get a life worth living, and stop trying to take life from innocent children (born and unborn) with your mean-spirited, unfounded, pro-death postulations & propaganda.
Thank you, Bethany, I’m looking forward to reading this one!
Thank you Life lynx!!
To add to what life lynx said………Self centered people never can, and neither can control freaks!
I have much better things to do with my time than fabricate heinous crimes,
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Well then a crime like that – 5 torure-murdered boys – would have been a very sensational crime. Tell us where it happened. Tell us who did it.
Regardless of my personal beliefs, I generally subscribe to a live-and-let-live attitude. As long as someone isn’t trying to foist their beliefs off on me, I’m fine with whatever anyone wants to believe.
Cheers to that.
In my opinion, all religion is based on lies. I believe that it harms someone to believe a lie and to base their life upon it
I suppose, coming from your standpoint, I can see what you mean. If I thought religions were based on lies, I would agree.
You know what the wonderful thing is, Enigma? That we, as reasonable people, can respect each other’s opinions. I will not say that you are condemned to an eternity in the tortures of hell because you don’t share my beliefs.
Sorry, that was a bit self-righteous of me, I know. But that is a HUGE pet-peeve of mine. I cannot roll my eyes enough…
PP truly never ceases to degrade and disgust.
First, this crap trying to put an accidental/natural death (miscarriage) on the same plane as premeditated murder (induced abortion). As though there were no difference between a person dying of a natural heart attack, and dying from being stabbed in the heart…or from being given a lethal injection to the heart, as they now do in some child-killing procedures. SOME CHILDREN DIE FROM CHANCE, AND THAT IS A TRAGEDY; BUT NO CHILD SHOULD DIE FROM SOMEONE ELSE CHOOSING TO KILL THEM; FOR THAT IS AN OUTRAGE.
And then the birds & bees onesies…I suppose they would be trying to get kids interested in sex before they were born, if it weren’t so darned lucrative to kill them instead…so they they continue to stalk the ones they couldn’t abort with their sex-ed junk. “Wait! It’s not too late to kill them after all! We may get another chance to kill them with stds, and by aborting the babies they conceive out of wedlock!” So everytime a teen uses that ruler, they are conditioned to think about sex. Is there anything these perverts won’t sexualize in their quest to corrupt and destroy as many as they can? No wonder so many graduate with no marketable skills, unless they plan to go into prostitution.
The scriptures state that whoever commits sexual sin lacks sense…so thank your local PP affiliate for a dumbed down, emotionally disturbed, spiritually bankrupt, narcissistic, oversexed, and violent, dying school-aged populace.
Doug I saw your comment that “people have been having abortions for thousands and thousand of years…” and “people have been having abortions for a long,long time and there are always people dissatisifed with things…” and a quote came to mind right away. The late great Albus Dumbledore( headmaster of Hogwarts in JK Rowlings’ Harry Potter series) once said,”It is important to fight and fight again and keep fighting for only then can evil be kept at bay.” There is evil in our society and there always will be. That doesn’t mean we should just throw are hands up and concede defeat. The long history of abortion and its’ current legality does not make it any less evil.
Laura, unlike you, I don’t care anything about sensation for sensation’s sake; I do care about being both honest and discreet, two things I have no reason to think you’d recognize if you fell over them. A word to the wise is sufficient, a wicked and perverse generation seeks after a sign. Grow up. The world does not revolve around your false, vicious, stupid self.
carrie, excellent post! Abortion was wrong back then, it’s wrong today, and it will be wrong 1000 years from now.
life lynx, I have been accused of pretending to know tons of women who have had negative experiences with their abortions………Excuse me, but aren’t there 1.3 MILLION abortions annually? How could I NOT know people like this?
Lynx: Laura, unlike you, I don’t care anything about sensation for sensation’s sake;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then why did you make up that sick, disturbing, grisly story?
You lied in order to disparage an entire group of people who have done you no harm.
Bigotry and ingnorance are ugly, UGLY things.
I don’t have a comment to address to anyone in particular, but I don’t have an issue with homosexuality or homosexuals as individuals. I suppose I would be considered a liberal concerning this issue compared to the other prolifers on this board. Is there room in the prolife movement for people like me, I am starting to wonder….
Carrie: Doug I saw your comment that “people have been having abortions for thousands and thousand of years…” and “people have been having abortions for a long,long time and there are always people dissatisifed with things…” and a quote came to mind right away. The late great Albus Dumbledore( headmaster of Hogwarts in JK Rowlings’ Harry Potter series) once said,”It is important to fight and fight again and keep fighting for only then can evil be kept at bay.” There is evil in our society and there always will be. That doesn’t mean we should just throw are hands up and concede defeat. The long history of abortion and its’ current legality does not make it any less evil.
Carrie, hats off to Albus – he was a rockin’ dude. I guess we’re back to which is the greater evil – not having the life of the unborn continue, or taking away the freedom that the woman has in the matter?
Doug
First we had Diana and her perpetual bodily autonomy mantra.
Carder, I wasn’t here then, but seems to me it’s the same deal – the life of the unborn versus the woman’s freedom/autonomy.
……
Now we have *valuation*. John McD has graciously mentioned “The Cartesian Box” to describe this carousel we’re on (correct me if I’m wrong, John McD). A broken record is more my visualization.
It seems we’re stuck on valuation.
I wouldn’t say “stuck,” other than it’s a truth there is no getting away from. You more value the unborn life, I more value the woman being able to do what she wants in this deal.
……
We’ve seen/read how unfettered valuation can go lethally wrong throughout history and not-so recent history. I’ll have to defer to Jacqueline’s marvelous post on the Terri Schiavo thread. So much easier to shift as the wind blows rather than sticking to Truth. Don’t want the kid? Wanna end your life? Doesn’t matter if you can’t defend yourself, cause, guess what? It’s all about valuation.
I know, I know, it’s my valuation that has me writing this. My valuation and not yours. And not his, or not the others. Round and round we go…
There is the “slippery slope” if it’s one person, a dictator, etc., at the helm, IMO. But for most countries and most societies the laws are very similar, since what people want doesn’t vary all that much, no matter where one looks. I know you and others would have this be different, but it’s human nature to have the Birth Strandard for rights and personhood. We’ve modified that a little with considerations of viability and restrictions on abortion. I’m fine with it, you’re not.
On most things, there isn’t significant disagreement, and people go with the majority, with society’s dictates, “the way the wind blows,” etc., and there are few problems – even in the opinions of people. Abortion is different – there is significant disagreement, and the argument continues….
Doug
I don’t have a comment to address to anyone in particular, but I don’t have an issue with homosexuality or homosexuals as individuals. I suppose I would be considered a liberal concerning this issue compared to the other prolifers on this board. Is there room in the prolife movement for people like me, I am starting to wonder….
Carrie, if you’re going to vote for pro-life candidates, I’d say you’re fine, regardless of other stuff.
There is idealism and there is pragmatism. You might get reviled by some pro-lifers for certain things, but they want your vote nonetheless.
Doug
Well now gee Doug,
On most things, there isn’t significant disagreement, and people go with the majority, with society’s dictates, “the way the wind blows,” etc., and there are few problems – even in the opinions of people. Abortion is different – there is significant disagreement, and the argument continues….
why do you think that is? Could it be because some of us realize that legalized murder is wrong and others can only see through self-focused eyes.
Maybe I’ll start a group called Liberals For Life(if there isn’t one already) . I actually don’t consider myself that liberal. I live in probably the most liberal state in the nation so I’m probably the token conservative around here(lol).
@carder,
the ‘Cartesian box’ is the name given by some philosophers to a way of perceiving reality. It started with the 16th century philosopher, Rene Descartes, but over the centuries, it is now so common that proponents often think that no other reasonable form of perception exists … eg. religious-based views are banished as having no merit. It gets particularly frustrating (a broken record) when aligned with a moral-relativism as Doug has done.
The popularity of this view can be seen in people embracing the ‘independence’ notions in the US constitution so tightly, that a view of the human as an isolate is what is derived. An American society is more akin to a crowd at a football game than it is to a family.
Such terms as patriotism, protective and paternalism are not only dismissed as being outdated (WW II), but are considered abusive by many.
@carder,
maybe it’s best to make a few observations. One of the main reasons that I know so much about this ‘box’ is that I’ve known it from inside. As the years go bye, I tend to get a new perspective on this. For me, it was closer to a ‘trap’ than a ‘box’. And although many folks (including me) consider Doug pretty bright, he is not very tenacious/fanatical as I and some other philosophers are.
Because of this attitude, I made encounters that made this cage obvious. ‘What to do? What to do?’ Even though I had a name for it …. nobody I knew ever escaped or ‘got out’. My obvious-helpers could not assist because they perceived this ‘box’ as excluding themselves and worked their way around it.
The ‘box’ views the world at-a-distance, something like a scientist peering down a microscope. Except all reality is on the ‘slide end’. Typically this is a safe/defensive to remove you being hurt by the mess of the world. Trouble is over time you get used to this and start doing some manipulation … reality is at the end of your microscope … so you have control of what goes on the slide… God is usually the first to go; but eventually funerals and intense reality, like caring for a toddler also is shed. [Perhaps, there is pro-abortion for fear of inadequacy?]
With God disposed off …. it is very easy to say He is no more than a human projection … the God-replacement is usually the person peering down the microscope because this is not ‘the’ reality, but ‘his/her’ reality.
John,
Once again my Angels/Demons book has touched upon your topic of the day…dang if I don’t keep leaving it in the car…
Anyway they were talking about new age angelism and how people have started worshiping angels instead of God. It says that some people try to “become” angels by separating the body from the mind.
Talks about the Cartesian Box. When people get too into their “heads” they stop celebrating their humanness and start trying to become “angels”, beings of pure mind, without bodies.
Instead of integrating mind and body, which is how we were created, they separate the two.
They percieve their bodies as pure animal, and their minds as angelic. (Not angels as in good angels, but angels as in pure thought).
But the problem is, we are NOT angels, and we are NOT animals. We are a combination of both.
Angels will never feel sunlight on their face, or eat ice cream or “hear” music. They are pure spirit and have no physical senses. They spend their lives seeking more knowledge…
Animals cannot reason. While they have brains, they do not have “minds”…They will never be able to “seek knowledge”.
Men are both. They are part sensual and part mental. To separate them is to deny the reality.
Doug and those like him are frustrating, because they are angelistic. They deny the physical when arguing and all of their words come from the purely mental.
While you and I, argue by integrating both the mind and the body. This is why you and I argue with the emotions as well as the mind.
Doug’s arguments are not well rounded because he ignores a great part of who he is…a sensual being as well as a mental one.
This is why he can seem so cold.
People like Doug, have abused both parts of who they are. They have relegated their sensual side to a place that only fulfills their physical pleasures, while the mind is used purely for debate and reasoning.
But this is to misunderstand what it means to be human. We are both and we would do well not to separate the two.
Otherwise we become like computers mentally and beasts physically.
I guess this means we’ll never win the argument with the Dougs, Hals and Dianas of this world, because they are not whole, integrated beings and unless we are willing to split ourselves in two as they have, we will always be arguing from a different place…
That’s a little condesending, don’t you think?
Could it be because some of us realize that legalized murder is wrong and others can only see through self-focused eyes.
No, MK. It is because there are quite a few people whose eyes are focused on the unprovable beliefs within themselves.
Doug,
No, MK. It is because there are quite a few people whose eyes are focused on the unprovable beliefs within themselves.
And those people that focus on an unprovable belief are the ones that realize that legalized murder is wrong…while those that are focused on themselves (everything is a personal valuation…as in I am my own god) perceive abortion as a relative not an absolute.
So yes, Doug, some of us realize that legalized murder is wrong and others can only see through self-focused eyes.
John: the ‘Cartesian box’ is the name given by some philosophers to a way of perceiving reality. It started with the 16th century philosopher, Rene Descartes, but over the centuries, it is now so common that proponents often think that no other reasonable form of perception exists … eg. religious-based views are banished as having no merit. It gets particularly frustrating (a broken record) when aligned with a moral-relativism as Doug has done.
John, I don’t say religious-based views have “no merit.” They can be a VERY good thing. It may sound like a broken record to you, but there really are some things that are true for all of us, rather than held by some of us as “faith,” and in no way is it necessarily a bad thing to focus on those truths.
……
The popularity of this view can be seen in people embracing the ‘independence’ notions in the US constitution so tightly, that a view of the human as an isolate is what is derived. An American society is more akin to a crowd at a football game than it is to a family.
I don’t really go for the “it takes a village” deal, but do think there is some merit in that, too, often. Other cultures give outstanding examples of this.
……
Such terms as patriotism, protective and paternalism are not only dismissed as being outdated (WW II), but are considered abusive by many.
And sometimes they are. Women have it better now than they did in the past, by far. You might argue that, but most women won’t agree with you. I don’t see anything wrong with patriotism and being protective, but if “paternalism” means taking away women’s freedom they you gotta figure you’re gonna get argued with.
Doug
That’s a little condesending, don’t you think?
No more condescending than believing that you and your desires are more important than the unborn. To me, that is the ultimate condescension…and the ultimate arrogance.
MK, your posts are rich ground for many things. The abortion argument has taught me just how different people can be, and how amazingly opposite people can view things.
MK: Talks about the Cartesian Box. When people get too into their “heads” they stop celebrating their humanness and start trying to become “angels”, beings of pure mind, without bodies.
It’s not all about the “head.” The heart can more identify with a pregnant woman, that thinking, feeling, person, than with the unborn.
……
Instead of integrating mind and body, which is how we were created, they separate the two.
Not at all.
……
They percieve their bodies as pure animal, and their minds as angelic. (Not angels as in good angels, but angels as in pure thought).
How about we perceive both as they are? How about we not go for what others have told us, without proof or good reasons to do so?
……
But the problem is, we are NOT angels, and we are NOT animals. We are a combination of both.
This is philosophy, etc. Is that a good enough reason to take away the woman’s freedom, here. I say no.
……
Angels will never feel sunlight on their face, or eat ice cream or “hear” music. They are pure spirit and have no physical senses. They spend their lives seeking more knowledge…
Seeking knowledge ain’t all that bad, actually. In no way does it rule out the other stuff you mention. “Will never feel..”? Good grief, look at some of the attitudes about sex, right on this board.
Doug
MK: Animals cannot reason. While they have brains, they do not have “minds”…They will never be able to “seek knowledge”.
Well, our physical body is what it is. Not considering the brain, especially, we certainly are “animals,” one more species on earth among many.
……
Men are both. They are part sensual and part mental. To separate them is to deny the reality.
Again, you’re pretending there is some “sensual” part missing with people who don’t believe as you do, and that’s just crazy.
……
Doug and those like him are frustrating, because they are angelistic. They deny the physical when arguing and all of their words come from the purely mental.
God love you, MK. I’m sure that’s the first time I’ve been called “angelistic.”
At first I thought you meant Dan Brown:
http://www.danbrown.com/novels/angels_demons/reviews.html
……
While you and I, argue by integrating both the mind and the body. This is why you and I argue with the emotions as well as the mind.
That is simply false. Pro-Choicers are motivated by their hearts just as much as you are.
……
Doug’s arguments are not well rounded because he ignores a great part of who he is…a sensual being as well as a mental one.
Weak, ad-hominem stuff. I suggest that Enigma, and I, and others, know themselves just as well as you if not better. Moreover, we have a more accurate perspective on you than you do on us.
……
This is why he can seem so cold.
MK, I’ve been impressed with your honesty, at times. Speaking of crying while stopped at a stopped light, being disappointed in people’s posts, etc. I know you’re not cold. I think you should know that other people are not, as well.
Doug
MK: People like Doug, have abused both parts of who they are. They have relegated their sensual side to a place that only fulfills their physical pleasures, while the mind is used purely for debate and reasoning.
I disagree. The above is obfuscation, really just restating the same old theme of “there has to be more,” than what reality is. Does the physical body, aside from the mind, really have some place in this online debate? Is there some necessary “intelligence” in our sensual side that argues pro-life ideals? Come on…..
Abuse – yes, I’ve abused myself, in several ways. My choice, if you really want to call it “abuse.” You would be “horrified” at some of the things I’ve done – things I’ve eaten, drank, distances I’ve driven, extremes I’ve gone to. There are other abuses as well.
……
But this is to misunderstand what it means to be human. We are both and we would do well not to separate the two. Otherwise we become like computers mentally and beasts physically.
In large measure, being human is caring about other humans. I know you’re saying, “Yes, and….” Herein is much of the abortion argument. My cares may not be exactly the same as yours, but that hardly means there is some horrendous dichotomy at work within me.
Doug
MK: I guess this means we’ll never win the argument with the Dougs, Hals and Dianas of this world, because they are not whole, integrated beings and unless we are willing to split ourselves in two as they have, we will always be arguing from a different place…
Translation: If you can’t beat ’em, try to demean ’em.”
MK, there is no “winning” this argument. We come at it two different ways.
One huge abuse I see goes back to the original priesthood, where some relatively few people preyed on the fears and ignorance of others, claiming that the others needed the priests, to “keep them straight,” so to speak. And, oh yes – since the priests were gonna do this great boon for the populace, the people should support the priests.
This has continued to the present time, and it flourishes now, be it the mullahs or Islam or the “send-money” Christians on TV, or anybody who wants the “flock” to give up freedom of thought in return for the dubious security offered by the priests.
Doug
It’s not all about the “head.” The heart can more identify with a pregnant woman, that thinking, feeling, person, than with the unborn.
……
I suppose you’re using the word “identify” in this sense?
“consider (oneself) as similar to somebody else”
Couldn’t you also say the very same thing about the heart being able to identify with an intelligent person, rather than a retarded child? But are retarded children any less worthy of life? Couldn’t you say the same thing about the heart being able to identify with a woman than a newborn baby? But are newborn babies any less special, simply because we cannot identify with them?
Couldn’t you say the same thing about the heart being able to identify with someone who shares your values, but are people who don’t share your values any less worthy of life?
Couldn’t you say the same thing, that your heart can identify more with people of your own culture, rather than people from other cultures? But are people from other cultures less human?
I suppose you’re using the word “identify” in this sense?
“consider (oneself) as similar to somebody else”
Yes, Bethany, and have empathy with, etc.
……
Couldn’t you also say the very same thing about the heart being able to identify with an intelligent person, rather than a retarded child? But are retarded children any less worthy of life?
Yes, but that is two different things. One could identify more with the retarded child, too, if one puts himself in the child’s place. This is not saying “more worthy” or “less worthy,” either way. There is also the matter of both not being inside the body of a person, both being unquestionably able to suffer, etc. Having empathy for someone necessarily means that feelings have to be there, IMO, and there too both people have them, without doubt. With the unborn it is at least a question.
……
Couldn’t you say the same thing about the heart being able to identify with a woman than a newborn baby? But are newborn babies any less special, simply because we cannot identify with them?
Sure, but again, identifying isn’t necessarily valuation. IF we say it is, then it stands to reason that many people will indeed value the woman more than the unborn. Many a husband would want the wife’s life saved, for example, over the unborn life, if it came to choosing between the two.
……
Couldn’t you say the same thing about the heart being able to identify with someone who shares your values, but are people who don’t share your values any less worthy of life? Couldn’t you say the same thing, that your heart can identify more with people of your own culture, rather than people from other cultures? But are people from other cultures less human?
No, they’re not less human. On the other cultures, I think that many people really can identify with them, be imagining themselves in the others’ places, having been raised in the same environment, etc. Same for those with different values – for example, I think I understand quite well what you think, what you value, etc.
Doug
Yes, but that is two different things. One could identify more with the retarded child, too, if one puts himself in the child’s place. This is not saying “more worthy” or “less worthy,” either way. There is also the matter of both not being inside the body of a person, both being unquestionably able to suffer, etc. Having empathy for someone necessarily means that feelings have to be there, IMO, and there too both people have them, without doubt. With the unborn it is at least a question.
If it is a question, why not err on the side of life? If later in the future, undeniable proof existed that the unborn absolutely does have excruciating pain during an abortion, won’t you feel a little bit bad about having allowed it to happen for so long?
Bethany,
I’ve responded to your post in this thread since that one went into archives. It’s a shame Heather’s not going to read my response though. Actually, I’m tempted to repost it here.
“However, if it is your view that the fetus does not have human life, you are a little behind the times, aren’t you?”
Not at all. I’m actually right with the times. Human life is not defined by heartbeat or DNA. Human life is defined by brain activity. If a fetus does not have a brain, it may be potential human life, but it is not human life.
“A large number pro-choice supporters even disagree with you now, because they have realized it is scientifically in error to say they have no human life.”
It isn’t scientific error. Actually, it’s perfectly in line with scientific terminology. It would be an error to say that the fetus does not posess potential human life.
“Therefore, instead of deciding to stick to their original errant idea that the fetus is not a human being, or even possessing human life, they argue simply that the fetus is a human being, some even go to the extent of saying the that fetus is a person, but that no person has the right to use the organs of another person’s without that person’s permission.”
First off, it’s not an errant idea. Secondly, this argument is quite true and logical. You can’t argue that a fetus is human and deserving of all the rights that such humanity entails while simultaneously asserting that a fetus deserves rights that humans do not possess.
“If their life isn’t human, what is it?”
The cells may be alive, but cells do not a human life make.
“It’s obviously got to be human, because it is a complete human organism existing within the womb of another complete human organism.”
One can be human without possessing human life. Organ donors fall into this category and fetuses fall into this category. Actually, if you want to get technical, corpses fall into this category too but I’ve never yet come across an argument stating that corpses deserve the rights that their humanity entails (though Jaqueline did come pretty close).
This is from a different thread, but I want to make sure Heather gets my response.
These are Heather’s posts:
“Enigma, My gay friend is dying of AIDS. Every time a woman has unprotected sex, she has also put herself at risk for an STD. When she gets pregnant, she wants the government to “KEEP YOUR LAWS OUT OF MY UTERUS” *laughing* So, you have just made it quite clear that you are blatantly thumbing your nose at the government. How many of these PC protesters have come down with AIDS? NOW who is going to take care of you? Answer: THE GOVERNMENT!! The very people you asked to allow you to make your own choices. The government is paying for my friend’s astronomical medical expenses now!”
“My point? If you hate the government that much, then go and tell your PC pals NOT to ask for a hand out when they become ill over their stupid sexual choices.”
This is my response:
That’s some interpretive reading. Let’s see what I actually said about government.
“If a woman becomes pregnant when she does not wish to be and the government prevents her from obtaining an abortion, than the government has seized control of the woman’s body for the benefit of another.”
How the heck is that saying that I hate government? How am I blatantly thumbing my nose at the government?
All I argued was the government should be limited in what it can and cannot do. If you believe that arguing for a limited government means that one hates the government then I fear what would happen if you or anyone of your ilk ever came to power.
Governments are necessary things. That does not mean that the government belongs everywhere. Governmental authority has its time and its place. There are some matters in which the government should have no right to interfere. Saying that does not make me anti-government. That makes me anti-government-controlling-every-aspect-of-our-lives.
Not at all. I’m actually right with the times. Human life is not defined by heartbeat or DNA. Human life is defined by brain activity. If a fetus does not have a brain, it may be potential human life, but it is not human life.
That is your opinion, Enigma. That is how YOU value human life. That is not scientific.
It isn’t scientific error. Actually, it’s perfectly in line with scientific terminology. It would be an error to say that the fetus does not posess potential human life.
Show me the scientific evidence that proves that a fetus is not biologically alive, and that the human fetus not human.
First off, it’s not an errant idea. Secondly, this argument is quite true and logical. You can’t argue that a fetus is human and deserving of all the rights that such humanity entails while simultaneously asserting that a fetus deserves rights that humans do not possess.
Yes I can. Because I do not believe that the fetus deserves more rights, simply the right that every human has, the right to life.
The cells may be alive, but cells do not a human life make.
That’s your opinion, and your valuation, Enigma. Again, it’s not scientific.
One can be human without possessing human life.
I disagree, except in the case of a completely dead person.
Organ donors fall into this category and fetuses fall into this category.
I disagree.
Actually, if you want to get technical, corpses fall into this category too but I’ve never yet come across an argument stating that corpses deserve the rights that their humanity entails (though Jaqueline did come pretty close).
I agree with Jacqueline.
I do not believe corpses possess human life anymore, because the life is gone and their body is still here. However, they do deserve the right to be buried properly, and their corpses should be handled with care and respect. What is wrong about that?
If it is a question, why not err on the side of life? If later in the future, undeniable proof existed that the unborn absolutely does have excruciating pain during an abortion, won’t you feel a little bit bad about having allowed it to happen for so long?
The reason not to err is because there is the pregnant woman to consider. As things are already, if pain is a concern, anesthesia is available. Also, considering some of the pain that happens to babies during birth, pain alone is hardly an argument.
Doug
I do not believe corpses possess human life anymore, because the life is gone and their body is still here. However, they do deserve the right to be buried properly, and their corpses should be handled with care and respect. What is wrong about that?
Bethany, I’m not saying this is a big deal, and I promise not to argue back-and-forth for 800 posts about it, but I think that saying “corpses deserve” is a good example of vaulation. It’s not *really* that they “deserve,” it’s that living people think such-and-such about them. If anything, it’s done for family members, etc.
Doug
Yes, Laura, bigotry and ignorance are UGLY things. That being the case, why don’t you let go of your own ignorant bigotry? The best working definition I ever heard of bigotry is being down on something you’re not up on, and I cannot think of a more fitting description of your attitude towards anyone who does not share your view that chopped babies are the hottest thing since sliced bread, or that homosexual sodomy is a healthy, legitimate, victimless act.
I have not lied in order to disparage an innocent class of people, and you have no proof that I have; you have, however, in your repeated, IGNORANT, and unfounded slurs about my having never left my home in 50 years (you do not even know my age), your repeated accusations that I invented the sick, grisly, disturbing crimes of homosexual predation, despite the fact that I personally knew one of the victims in the first case, and learned of the second case by a close friend of the bereaved and traumatized mother of the young brothers. (Incidentally, your likening that as you did to a teenage gossip session that made it’s way through 6 or 7 nosy but careless, personally unconcerned sources was a tasteless, cruel, cheap shot at a mother’s grief over a senseless, cruel act of sexual perversion that actually did happen, and I have much more evidence that all those crimes happened than you will ever have that they did not.) Get it through whatever’s left of your mendacious, ignorant, bigoted little brain: DENIAL IS NOT THE SAME AS REFUTATION. What’s it going to be next, Laura, holocaust denial? 9-11 denial?
What if I had caved in to the ad hominem tantrum I predicted you would throw and provided you with the details of when & where? You would have only found some other pretext to twist and try to deny that; it would have been a classic case of casting pearls before swine. I will never buy your claim that you would, if you knew all I know about this, expose it as you claim you would. You have resorted to slandering me in order to discredit suppress what I did tell you; somehow that disinclines me (and any other thinking person of conscience)to suppose even for a minute that you would do otherwise with further information. Who do you think you are fooling? All you care about is your own sick, grisly, distubed, perverted, predatory, politically correct, population control campaign, and parroting it’s hateful and mendacious propaganda, regardless of who it hurts or kills.
I, and many others, have tried to warn you that what the powers you now serve cause you to do to others reflects their own destructive intentions towards you and all humanity; you may continue to deny, slander, and attack us all you want, but you will have only yourself to thank for the consequences, and it is you and your ilk that your victims (including AIDS victims) can thank, not those of us who fear their (and your) physical and spiritual death more than we fear their (and your)wrath. You, on the other hand, try to stir up wrath in order to perpetuate more death through pernicious behavior. You haven’t seen wrath, Laura, like you will see if you do not repent. Do it now; none of us is guaranteed tomorrow; but we are guaranteed that if any person is in Christ,(s)he is a new creation, and there will be no need to misspend your remaining days as you seem to be spending your current ones.
Bethany,
“That is your opinion, Enigma. That is how YOU value human life. That is not scientific.”
No, that is not just my opinion. I am not the one that came up with the definition of “brain death” or the concept that brain function determines whether or not one is alive.
“Show me the scientific evidence that proves that a fetus is not biologically alive, and that the human fetus not human.”
I never argued that the fetus is not biologically alive. I argued that the fetus did not have human life. There is a difference. One can be alive and yet not possess the attributes and qualities necessary to have human life.
“Yes I can. Because I do not believe that the fetus deserves more rights, simply the right that every human has, the right to life.”
By making that argument, you are attempting to give fetuses rights that humans do not possess. No human being has the right to forcefully impose upon another’s body even if such access is necessary for life.
Simply because I have the right to life does not give me the right to go out and demand that someone give me a kidney because I will die without one. It is the same for a fetus. Simply because the fetus will loose whatever kind of life that it possesses if the woman does not allow it to feed off her person does not mean that the fetus had a right to feed off of her.
“That’s your opinion, and your valuation, Enigma. Again, it’s not scientific.” (Previous comment : The cells may be alive, but cells do not a human life make.”
It’s not just my opinion. If cells being alive constituted human life, then organ donation would be illegal.
“I disagree, except in the case of a completely dead person.” (Previous comment: One can be human without possessing human life.)
That is your opinion and your valuation.
“I agree with Jacqueline.”
So then you believe that organ donation should be outlawed as well.
“However, they do deserve the right to be buried properly, and their corpses should be handled with care and respect. What is wrong about that?”
There’s nothing wrong with it. They simply don’t have a right to it because they’re dead. They no longer have interests. Any care that a corpse receives is, as Doug stated, due to the desires of the living.
YOU GO, life lynx!
Laura just proves how vicious the homofascist lobby really is. You definitely called her number, too; I’ve interfaced with her sort, and their responses really are quite false, vicious, unfounded, robotic and predictable.
I don’t know, of course, when the cases you have related here occurred, but I do remember a lawsuit against Barnes & Noble, I think it was about 8-10 years ago, for selling a book of child porn. The reason they were sued for this was that a man had been convicted of sodomizing and killing several young male victims, and the book sold by B&N was implicated in all those crimes; he used it to overcome the natural modesty/inhibitions of his young victims, and lure/entice/seduce them into gratifying his perverted appetites. Planned Parenthood’s own sex “education” materials are designed to do that same thing, so it’s hardly surprising that diehard supporters of theirs like Laura will always take the predators’ part, and try to present them as the victims.
Barnes & Noble had been the target of a boycott while they were selling that book, but they pulled it from the shelves after that lawsuit.
There is even more information about the destructive nature of homosexual sodomy available at http://www.whatyouknowmightnotbeso.com/gaystudy.html
@Carrie: I know of a few people who are liberal and pro-life, it’s not very common due to the constant partisanship and “either or” thinking that completely screws over both “liberals” and “conservatives” but it does happen. There is an organization known as “Democrats for Life” that consists of…pro-life Democrats.
However, on this site, you probably won’t find any liberal pro-lifers except for PrettyinPink, considering a good majority of the people on here are ardent social conservatives.
@MK,
while dualism (conservative-liberal; Republican-Democrat; mind-body) CAN indeed be morphed into the Cartesian box, it isn’t quite that simple and maybe not so apparent. For the very first time, the person was not consider a whole being but a collection of aspects (in Catholicism our soul went to heaven while ‘we’ went to the grave)…. we often talk of physical exercise and psychological profiles as if these were elements from different beings and not in a human being. [Doug even talks of a ‘legal’ human called a ‘person’, and you get frustrated because of in-the-head splitting. This can be repeated by ‘US-citizen’ as if there was a non-human character in opposition, called ‘an alien’. In abortion this splitting can be seen in Doug’s and Enigma’s wantedness/unwantedness.]
Part of the selecting-the-reality-on-the-slide is you are in control … so, it is your choosing to what gets to go on your ‘slide’… from abortion to designer IVF babies (including sex selection). If you are God/in-charge (THE replacement for Him) then your desires are uppermost.
The ‘fear’ of God existing is that the admission that the universe is not ‘mine’ to control. I love how pointedly honest Enigma is. She even replied to the Christian-dance in one of the most wonderful clear observations. But alas she said that while appealing there is none to seek as the-last-resource. Ah, this is a spiritual as well as a psychological problem … very often this ‘last-resource’ we figure should be Jesus (Has to-be JESUS). But He tends to ask us where were we when someone asked us to be-there for them … (aka midnight). Did we rebuff all those helpers He sent because these were not spiritual enough?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
on my placing ‘faith’ in quotes for my schema on another post. What I mean by this word includes religious faith but is absolutely fundamental to note any reality at all. The easiest one of note is communication: we BELIEVE that you can understand what is said; I BELIEVE (even before I write words that you understand English, grammar, syntax … all aspects of what I write. If I suddenly wrote $$##3*^^% …. you’d go:’What the f*** has he said now?’ ALL … every bit of communication is ‘faith’- based before ever speaking. I trust you to understand and you trust me to be understandable. In teaching you a language as a child, your parents were also teaching trust … which is ‘faith’ in other humans. Far too often, we surmise that a repetition is proof. However, there is a certain consistency that we call Mother nature. We BELIEVE in such consistency … eg. the chair your are now sitting on will NOT suddenly disappear and your a** will end up on the floor.
The word ‘faith’ that I chose for the schema was the only apt word that I could think of. While it does not negate the usual use of the word ‘faith’, I mean it more like: ‘faith-background’.
Rae, thanks for the info on Democrats for Life. I’ll have to look into it.
we often talk of physical exercise and psychological profiles as if these were elements from different beings and not in a human being. [Doug even talks of a ‘legal’ human called a ‘person’, and you get frustrated because of in-the-head splitting. This can be repeated by ‘US-citizen’ as if there was a non-human character in opposition, called ‘an alien’. In abortion this splitting can be seen in Doug’s and Enigma’s wantedness/unwantedness.]
John, great stuff. I would say that when it’s like that, the physical exercise is taken for granted to be “in a human being.”
There are different states of “being,” and one is legal, yes, and goes along with attributed status like personhood etc.
As for the “splitting,” yes – there is such a thing as wanted and unwanted. It’s not always the same deal.
……
If I suddenly wrote $$##3*^^% …. you’d go:’What the f*** has he said now?’
John, that sometimes happens even when you use a more familiar syntax.
:: chuckling :: (And you’re not alone in that, I have no doubt.)
Cheers,
Doug
Enigma, excuse me, but you are asking the government to stay out of your bedroom……..ever see that sign @ the PC rallies? Gee, I’ve never seen the government spying on me, while I was in MY bedroom. You guys don’t want the government to limit your legalized abortions, so why does the government have to pay for you when you become sick?
Enigma: “Human life is defined by brain activity”
Says who?
Life lynx 2,
You know as much as I do about the first multiple sodomy/murder case; I have an e-mail in to the friend who told me of the second concerning more details, and I’ll call you, or e-mail you (is your e-mail working now?) with those details when I get them. I could probably get in touch with the mother of those victims, but I hardly want to drag her back through such a trauma; sometimes middle-(wo)men are a good thing. I can understand your using our common screen name to get a rise out of laura-it’s sometimes fun to give these folks a dose of their own medicine, and tweak them just for innocent fun, but next time let’s discuss it first; I think she has enough deception and confusion of her own without either of us adding any fuel to the fire! Talk to you soon!
John,
“But alas she said that while appealing there is none to seek as the-last-resource. Ah, this is a spiritual as well as a psychological problem …”
I don’t have any psychological problems and according to the scale used in the book, The God Gene (don’t know how to underline or italicize in this format), I am spiritual. Why is it evidence of psychological and spiritual problems when one doesn’t believe what you believe? You might not believe what I believe but that doesn’t mean that I accuse you of having deep-rooted problems.
“But He tends to ask us where were we when someone asked us to be-there for them … (aka midnight). Did we rebuff all those helpers He sent because these were not spiritual enough?”
This cuts way to close to blaming the victim. It also doesn’t tarry with either an omnibenevolent God or with the portrayal of Jesus in the Bible. How could either of these beings turn a blind eye to suffering simply because their children happen to be misbehaving?
Heather,
“Enigma, excuse me, but you are asking the government to stay out of your bedroom”
Well, to get technical, there are a lot of other things that I think the government should stay out of.
“You guys don’t want the government to limit your legalized abortions, so why does the government have to pay for you when you become sick?”
You are trying to correlate two completely unrelated issues. The government pays for medical care because of a series of programs FDR started during the Great Depression. These programs included both Medicare and Medicaid.
I would like to take this opportunity to remind you that it is government “of the people, for the people, and by the people.” Its our government. Its job is to serve us and to protect the country. (Okay, admittedly that’s simplifying it but don’t get me started.)
Japser,
“Says who?” (Previous comment: Human life is defined by brain activity.)
The American Medical Association for one. I could find more but I’m kind of in a hurry.
From Angels and Demons by: Peter Kreeft
Cartesian Rationalism, which roots all certainty in the purely mental “I think therefore I am” instead of humbly beginning by accepting sense experience of the material world. Descartes trust his inner angel (intellect) but not his inner animal (senses).
Lockean Empiricism which is also angelistic, even though it relies on sense experience instead of abstract reason. For Locke’s fundamental err, right at the beginning of his system, is an angelistic one: he “thingifies” ideas. He say that the first and immediate object of thinking is an idea, not a real thing.
This logically leads to skepticism (the denial that we can ever have certain knowledge), as Locke’s successor, Hume, saw. For if all I can directly know is my own ideas and not real beings, then I can never check whether these two match. It’s like seeing only photographs or television images. I’m stuck inside my own mind (even if, as the empiricist teaches, that mind is dependent on the senses).
cont:
Kantian Idealism, which says that the mind imposes its innate a priori categories on experience rather than driving them from experience. Kant call this the “Copernican Revolution in philosophy”. reversing the positions of knowing mind and known object, as Copernicus reversed the positions of earth and sun. According to Kant, objects conform to the mind rather than mind conforming to objects. Mind rules rather than is ruled.
Actually, this is worse than confusing human minds with angels: it is confusing human minds with God!
Descartes is the father of modern Rationalism, Locke of Empiricism and Kant of Idealism: the three major schools of classically modern philosophy. All three, in different ways are forms of the fallacy of angelism…
@Enigma,
precisely … was this a for-real ‘turning a blind eye’ or a mis-reading on your part? Knowing God, you were likely answered, just not in the way you expect … ie. I believe he sends kids to fill that ‘joy-gap’ for many women. They abort this continuous stream of joy and heartache. There is little doubt that raising kids will stretch you incredibly, hard not to grow-up.
Are you a victim because you are pregnant? Can’t answer that … was Jesus a victim-lamb? was He the victorious-victim-lamb? Far too often, we stop at victim and don’t see it as a qualifier not an end in itself.
And:
The most common form of this mistake is the (Kantian) idea that the only thing that matters is your inner, spiritual intention. As long as you are sincere, it’s O.K. The external, material deed does not have moral value.
That is a cruel joke to tell to the victims of the Holocaust. Hitler was quite sincere. It is also an ethic we do not want our surgeon to believe in. Doing the wrong thing for the reason (spiritual intention) is still doing the wrong thing. Both the material thing and the spiritual intention count.
A second form of angelistic ethics is the (Platonic) doctrine that all you need is education; that evil is only moral ignorance (ignorance of the truth that morality is always good for you, always profitable, always makes you happy). Plato argues that because evil is ignorance, virtue is knowledge: to know the good is always to choose the good and to be good. We know from our experience that however reasonable this sounds, it is simply not true: many times, we knew darn well what we should , and yet did not do it.
Plato’s error is very popular today, because it means we need not ever be “judgmental:; it means that whenever we see people doing something wicked, we can excuse them by saying that they are just ignorant. On the other hand, we often expect educated people to be more ethical than the undereducated. If anything, statistics show the opposite! For instance, a study of the Nazi concentration camps showed that the cruelest torturers were the most highly educated. Intelligence doesn’t automatically make you good. The most brilliant mind in existence, next to God, was Lucifer before his fall.
Peter Kreeft
Angels and Demons
Later Mr. Kreeft does a small version of CS Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters…a book where one demon is mentoring another, in an exchange of letters between the two. Instead of Screwtape the demons in Kreeft’s story is called Snakebite. Here is his advice to his nephew Braintwister…
“The Enemy wants him to be an elitist about ideas and ideals, and an egalitarian about people; to be suspicious and critical of ideas but open and welcoming to all people. Our strategy is to make him just the opposite: and elitist about people and an egalitarian about ideas. Make him thin his teachers and scriptwriters are superior people, ut also that one idea isn’t really superior to another, that all ideas are equal, that there’s no objective truth, no real right and wrong, and thus no one has any right to “impose his own values on others.” (You simply will not believe how much mileage we’ve gotten out of tthat hogwash!)
Once again, keep his mind away from noting the self contradiction in our propaganda, the value judgment that there are no real value judgments, the dogma against dogma.
How can they not notice such an obvious contradiction? They can, Braintwister, they can- especially the well educated ones. The more educated they are, the less they believe in logic and common sense. It’s the farm boys and cleaning women whose minds we’ve been unable to twist.
The basic principle of our approach is a one-two punch: Hit them where they’re soft and weak, and at the same time hit them where they’re hard and proud-inother words, between their legs and between their ears.”
John,
“precisely … was this a for-real ‘turning a blind eye’ or a mis-reading on your part?”
I’ve had people argue this with me before.
“Knowing God, you were likely answered, just not in the way you expect”
I’ve heard this before too. All I can say, is if that was part of God’s plan, then that God would not be worth my time.
“I believe he sends kids to fill that ‘joy-gap’ for many women. They abort this continuous stream of joy and heartache.”
This is condescending. That may be how you view children, but it is not how everyone views them. Women do not necessarily have holes in their lives because they don’t have a child. Life will not necessarily improve simply because they have one. Life may get worse. Some women have no desire to have children and they have every right not to be compelled to have them.
“Are you a victim because you are pregnant?”
If you don’t want to be pregnant and the government refuses to allow you to abort, then yes, you are a victim.
“Far too often, we stop at victim and don’t see it as a qualifier not an end in itself.”
I will never argue that pain and suffering cannot lead to amazing things because its simply not true. Pain and suffering, however, should never be used by anyone as a qualifier. There are some pains that can never be rectified and to treat them as though they served some greater good is to trivialize them.
Enigma, are you saying that post abortive women are not at risk for HIV? Most of them “get around.” Then once they become ill, the government has to pick up the tab. My friend slept around and caught HIV. He is much too ill to work. The government has to pay for his health care. Don’t forget who’s there to pick up the pieces for you after you make stupid “reproductive” choices. Breast CA is also on the rise thanks to abortion. Who’s gonna pay for the treatment? The taxpayers.
Laura, unlike you, I don’t care anything about sensation for sensation’s sake; I do care about being both honest and discreet, two things I have no reason to think you’d recognize if you fell over them. A word to the wise is sufficient, a wicked and perverse generation seeks after a sign. Grow up. The world does not revolve around your false, vicious, stupid self.
Posted by: life lynx at September 23, 2007 3:48 PM
………………………………………..
A sick and perverse generation seeks after a sign.
Would that include those seeking signs of the ‘end time’? Those that search the Bible for secret codes and meanings?
Sally, a sick and perverse generation supports abortion.
No Sally,
It means that a simple word will suffice for the wise, while the fool is constantly seeking signs and proofs…
Doug,
This is why he can seem so cold.
MK, I’ve been impressed with your honesty, at times. Speaking of crying while stopped at a stopped light, being disappointed in people’s posts, etc. I know you’re not cold. I think you should know that other people are not, as well.
That’s why I used the word “seemed”.
I know that you aren’t actually cold. But it seems that way, because your value systems is based on thought without sentiment. Or at least it comes across that way.
Heather,
“Enigma, are you saying that post abortive women are not at risk for HIV?”
Of course not. Anyone who is sexually active has a risk of getting HIV. Post-abortive women do not have a higher risk of getting it simply because they have had an abortion.
“Most of them “get around.” Then once they become ill, the government has to pick up the tab.”
You are presenting a false and misleading argument. You’re implying that only women who sleep around and have unsafe sex have abortions. This is not true. Many women seek abortions because their birth control has failed. Some married women seek abortions as well. Sexual promiscuity does not automatically make one a canidate for abortion.
“My friend slept around and caught HIV. He is much too ill to work. The government has to pay for his health care.”
So what do you advocate? Do you think that the government should refuse to pay for your friend’s health care? Do you think that they should just let him die?
“Don’t forget who’s there to pick up the pieces for you after you make stupid “reproductive” choices.”
Again, a false and misleading comparison. As I recall, the government does not fund any abortions, thanks to the Hyde Amendment.
The government funds lots of health care after people make stupid choices. Are you really saying that there should be a committee somewhere where the government should evaluate each request for aid and deny it at will? Why do you constantly seek to impose your standards upon the rest of the world? Why can’t you simply accept that there are people who feel differently than you do?
“Breast CA is also on the rise thanks to abortion.”
There are many risk factors for breast cancer. One cannot prove causation without running an experiment. Since no one has run an experiement on the effects of abortion on breast cancer, one cannot prove that an increase in occurances of breast cancer is due to abortion. There is also a lot of reserach out there that indicates that the two are not linked. Despite all the research out there that argues that the two are linked, the only thing that I have concluded for certain is that abortion prevents a woman from gaining the additional protection against breast cancer that going though a pregnancy provides. That’s a far cry from saying that increases in breast cancer are due to abortion.
MK,
“It means that a simple word will suffice for the wise, while the fool is constantly seeking signs and proofs…”
Actually, I think that goes the other way around. It is not wisdom to blindly accept statements that someone else asserts are true. It is wise to seek to have that person verify her statements.
MK,
“I know that you aren’t actually cold. But it seems that way, because your value systems is based on thought without sentiment. Or at least it comes across that way.”
This is based on your valuation. There is not objective criteria for what constitutes a value system based on sentiment. If an individual’s sentiments are different than yours, of course that individual’s values will be different from yours. That doesn’t mean that they’re wrong or that they lack genuine sympathy and feeling behind them.
Enigma, I know one woman who had 7 abortions. Another had 9. My other friend had 2 from 2 one night stands, so don’t tell me that they don’t “get around.” A lot of them DO! I do want to see my friend receive treatment for his HIV, however the day he holds up a sign that says “MY PENIS, MY CHOICE” or “KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF OF MY TESTICALS”…withdraw the medical intervention immediately!
Enigma, have you ever had an abortion?
Enigma,
I understand that you and Doug “feel” strongly about your position…my point is that you came to your conclusions logically and not through feelings.
When you argue from a purely logical, or mental, frame, then those of us that are arguing strictly from the heart, have a hard time relating.
I don’t really think that you haven’t got any feelings either . That’s why I emphasized the word “seem”.
For some reason, you and I have not gotten off on the right foot, and I think I’m to blame. I don’t know why I haven’t given you a fair shake. I think arguing with Doug drains me, and you come from a very similar place, which makes me feel overwhelmed at times.
I’m really sorry, because it isn’t anything that you did or didn’t do. It’s all me. I should treat you as an individual and not as an extension of Doug. Please accept my sincere apology.
You deserved better.
MK
Heather,
“Enigma, I know one woman who had 7 abortions. Another had 9. My other friend had 2 from 2 one night stands, so don’t tell me that they don’t “get around.””
A few examples cannot be used to generalize for an entire population. I never denied that some women who get abortions sleep around. Some of them do. Some women sleep around and do not get abortions. Some women don’t sleep around and do get abortions. What’s your point?
“I do want to see my friend receive treatment for his HIV, however the day he holds up a sign that says “MY PENIS, MY CHOICE” or “KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF OF MY TESTICALS”…withdraw the medical intervention immediately!”
Interesting. So you think that your particular ideology is more important than human life. How comendable. People should only receive care if they abide by your standards.
“Enigma, have you ever had an abortion?”
Now what could my motivation for answering that question possible be?
If I say no, then you’ll tell me that I have no experience with abortion and should not comment on it because I am not qualified to do so.
If I say yes, you’ll argue that I’m simply trying to justify my own abortion and then you’ll grill me on my sexual history.
Choices, choices…I think I’ll simply say nothing at all.
MK,
“When you argue from a purely logical, or mental, frame, then those of us that are arguing strictly from the heart, have a hard time relating.”
Point taken. That perception isn’t one sided, however.
“For some reason, you and I have not gotten off on the right foot, and I think I’m to blame. I don’t know why I haven’t given you a fair shake. I think arguing with Doug drains me, and you come from a very similar place, which makes me feel overwhelmed at times.”
Don’t worry about it. I’m not the easiest person in the world to debate with, ecspecially not about issues that strike close to one’s heart. Since I don’t debate with the intent of changing anyone’s mind or having my own opinion changed, some people find me difficult to enage with.
“I’m really sorry, because it isn’t anything that you did or didn’t do. It’s all me. I should treat you as an individual and not as an extension of Doug. Please accept my sincere apology.”
It’s alright and I appreciate the gesture. Thank you.
Enigma: “I never denied that some women who get abortions sleep around. Some of them do. Some women sleep around and do not get abortions.”
No, not some, this is the result of the majority of abortions
Enigma “Why do you constantly seek to impose your standards upon the rest of the world? Why can’t you simply accept that there are people who feel differently than you do?”
yea, murderers feel differently than I do, why the heck should I impose my standard that murder should be illegal…they just feel differenly than I do. You have a good point Enigma…
Enigma, you wouldn’t give me an answer, so that’s a definite “yes.” You can go round and round in circles with these silly “person hood” and “viability” arguments, but I’m afraid I am not going to indulge you anymore. Try it with someone else. I stand firm in my beliefs. Unborn children are human. They have a right to live. There isn’t one thing you could ever say to make me see it your way, so it would be pointless to go any further.
Enigma, you missed my point about health care. How many women show up for the DC “Death March?” These women don’t want the government telling them not to have abortions. Let us abort any time, as many times as we want to, and shut the heck up up about it. We do not want you to control our bodies. FINE! Now, when these women get sick, who picks up the tab?? THE GOVERNMENT! The very people who you want to “stay out of your bedroom.”
Here is the Death March message in a nutshell: We want to sleep around without consequences. We want the right to kill our children. We don’t want men involved in our abortion decisions, except the PC men who side with us. We don’t want the government to tell us what to do!….Okay. Don’t forget who will be there to butter your bread when you get sick.
MK: I know that you aren’t actually cold. But it seems that way, because your value systems is based on thought without sentiment. Or at least it comes across that way.
My sentiment is more for the pregnant woman than for the unborn. I realize there’s quite a bit of argument about the “middle” period of gestation, but to a point the unborn aren’t thinking and aren’t feeling, while the woman certainly is.
But you’re only taking a temporary convenience from teh woman, while you’re taking LIFE from the baby. When you weigh the two, life is much more important. Not “quality” of life.
“The Enemy wants him to be an elitist about ideas and ideals, and an egalitarian about people; to be suspicious and critical of ideas but open and welcoming to all people. Our strategy is to make him just the opposite: and elitist about people and an egalitarian about ideas. Make him thin his teachers and scriptwriters are superior people, ut also that one idea isn’t really superior to another, that all ideas are equal, that there’s no objective truth, no real right and wrong, and thus no one has any right to “impose his own values on others.” (You simply will not believe how much mileage we’ve gotten out of tthat hogwash!)
Once again, keep his mind away from noting the self contradiction in our propaganda, the value judgment that there are no real value judgments, the dogma against dogma.
How can they not notice such an obvious contradiction? They can, Braintwister, they can- especially the well educated ones. The more educated they are, the less they believe in logic and common sense. It’s the farm boys and cleaning women whose minds we’ve been unable to twist.
This is one big straw man argument.
Who says that “all ideas are equal”? There’s plenty of “objective truth,” but that is not morality. One’s rights end where another’s begin, and to a point it’s true that nobody should impose on another (very commonly-held sentimetn there), but there are plenty of areas where we are imposed upon by society, and most of us are fine with it being that way.
There are plenty of real value judgments – people make them all the time.
Doug
Doug,
This is the message you should take away from that post…
the value judgment that there are no real value judgments, the dogma against dogma.
This is the message you should take away from that post…
the value judgment that there are no real value judgments, the dogma against dogma.
Heather,
“Enigma, you wouldn’t give me an answer, so that’s a definite “yes.””
I love it when people assume that simply because one has refused to answer a personal question that no one had the right to ask her in the fist that one has something to hide.
Whatever I did or did not do, I have no regrets and I have nothing to hide. I simply choose not to answer your question because it has no relevance to this debate. You also have no right to demand an answer.
Personal information is personal for a reason. I have no wish to have elements of my medical history–or lack thereof–as fodder on this site. Personally, I would hope that even though we may disagree, you would have enough respect for me as a human being not to demand to know all the personal details of my life. I would then hope that you would have the decency to accept it gracefully when I decline to answer what I deem to be an intrusive and unnecessary attempt to pry into my life.
Clearly, I was wrong.
Cartesian Rationalism, which roots all certainty in the purely mental “I think therefore I am” instead of humbly beginning by accepting sense experience of the material world. Descartes trust his inner angel (intellect) but not his inner animal (senses).
Lockean Empiricism which is also angelistic, even though it relies on sense experience instead of abstract reason. For Locke’s fundamental err, right at the beginning of his system, is an angelistic one: he “thingifies” ideas. He say that the first and immediate object of thinking is an idea, not a real thing.
This logically leads to skepticism (the denial that we can ever have certain knowledge), as Locke’s successor, Hume, saw. For if all I can directly know is my own ideas and not real beings, then I can never check whether these two match. It’s like seeing only photographs or television images. I’m stuck inside my own mind (even if, as the empiricist teaches, that mind is dependent on the senses).
MK, we all go along making unprovable assumptions. We do indeed trust our sense experience of the material world, although we can’t prove that our experience isn’t a “dream,” so to speak, and that we won’t “wake up” and find that reality is different. A consciousness knows of itself, I would say (the “I am” feeling), but down deep necessarily has to be less sure about everything else. Not really a big deal for us unless we’re focusing on that specific stuff.
Sometimes there are “real things” that exist whether a consciousness thinks of them or not, and then sometimes an idea is just an idea. What “certain knowledge” beyond consciousness really can be proven?
Doug
Enigma, then don’t answer. I really don’t care. You support the killing of unborn children, and I do not care to listen to you prattle on about an unborn child not a human being. That’s just not my style. You support abortion, so you are just as bad as the person who commits it. Good day.
Japser,
“No, not some, this is the result of the majority of abortions.”
This is a damaging and misleading stereotype that makes it easier for anti-abortion advocates to deny that women should be able to receive abortions.
“yea, murderers feel differently than I do, why the heck should I impose my standard that murder should be illegal”
That isn’t your standard. That’s the legal standards of a society. Laws are not in place to protect the individual. They are designed to ensure the survival of the society.
That isn’t your standard. That’s the legal standards of a society. Laws are not in place to protect the individual. They are designed to ensure the survival of the society.
So laws against rape aren’t designed to protect the individual who was raped?
Laws against pedophilia aren’t designed to protect children?
This is a damaging and misleading stereotype that makes it easier for anti-abortion advocates to deny that women should be able to receive abortions.
Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. I myself have known plenty of women who had abortions, and not a single one of them was happy, although publicly they would say they were (and most of them still claimed to be pro-choice)…when they came to me in private, they would admit their true feelings to me. They hurt terribly every day, and couldn’t stop thinking about their abortions.
The people who don’t regret their abortions are in the minority. You don’t agree obviously, but there’s not much I can do to change that. You’ll continue believing what you desire to believe.
No, that is not just my opinion. I am not the one that came up with the definition of “brain death” or the concept that brain function determines whether or not one is alive.
I don’t care if you “came up with it” or not. It’s not actual death. People who have been declared “brain dead” have come out of it and lived to talk about it. A human being is still living until the heart stops beating.
OTTAWA, Mar 3 (LSN) As the Canadian Parliament seeks to find ways to increase organ donation in Canada, a parliamentary committee has heard that heart transplant “donors” must be alive when organs are retrieved. Ruth Oliver, a Vancouver psychiatrist who was declared clinically dead in 1977 at the Kingston General Hospital after suffering internal bleeding of the brain, told the committee she is “living testimony that people survive.”
Dr. John Yun, a Richmond, B.C. oncologist, testified to the committee that organ harvesting was the impetus behind the brain death theory that has been accepted by the medical profession since 1968. Ten years ago Yun worked in an ICU unit keeping brain dead patients on life support for organ transplants. Yun now believes this activity was wrong. “We must not jump to the conclusion that a dubious definition of death — the medical hypothesis of brain death — is in fact death,” he said.
Dr. Michael Brear, a Vancouver general practitioner, who has for 30 years been raising questions about the ethics of brain death, told the committee that “The so-called ‘beating-heart cadavers’ who are used as donors are in fact living patients. They are sick, they are dying. They are living and not dead.”
Dr. Brear notes that the first successful heart transplant harvesting took place in South Africa. He suggested that racism was behind the decision to approve the procedure since the operation took place under the old apartheid system and the donor was a black woman.
Dr Oliver noted, “unconscious or dying people are not people of lesser value. More and more ethicists, philosophers, and churches are rejecting brain death specifically for that reason.”
See the story in the National Post at:
http://www.nationalpost.com/home.asp?f=990303/2333116
I never argued that the fetus is not biologically alive. I argued that the fetus did not have human life. There is a difference. One can be alive and yet not possess the attributes and qualities necessary to have human life.
That doesn’t prove that they’re not living human beings, sorry. I don’t see a difference. A living human being is a living human being. I don’t care if they’re able to sing an opera or do algebra or if they can’t do anything. If they’re human, and they’re alive, they are a living human being. You have yet to show me evidence this is untrue.
By making that argument, you are attempting to give fetuses rights that humans do not possess. No human being has the right to forcefully impose upon another’s body even if such access is necessary for life.
Enigma, read Jacqueline’s, Lauren’s, and Valerie’s recent posts on this for your answer.
Simply because I have the right to life does not give me the right to go out and demand that someone give me a kidney because I will die without one.
If someone created you by their actions, and gave you that kidney, they shouldn’t have the right to take it away from you, and yes, you’d have every right to insist they let you keep it.
It is the same for a fetus. Simply because the fetus will loose whatever kind of life that it possesses if the woman does not allow it to feed off her person does not mean that the fetus had a right to feed off of her.
Yes it does.
It’s not just my opinion. If cells being alive constituted human life, then organ donation would be illegal.
Maybe it should be.
So then you believe that organ donation should be outlawed as well.
I had never really thought about organ donation before you started talking about it, but I’m starting to think so. I originally thought that they were only taken from dead people, but I guess I was wrong.
Bethany,
“So laws against rape aren’t designed to protect the individual who was raped? Laws against pedophilia aren’t designed to protect children?”
They do protect the individual but that is not their primary purpose. They exist because a society could not long survive if the citizens were to rape/kill with impunity.
“Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.”
Stereotypes are sometimes true. Sometimes they are not.
“I myself have known plenty of women who had abortions, and not a single one of them was happy,”
Again, a few cases is not enough to make a blanekt generalization.
“The people who don’t regret their abortions are in the minority. You don’t agree obviously, but there’s not much I can do to change that. You’ll continue believing what you desire to believe.”
It’s not merely a matter of me believing what I desire to believe. It’s a matter of believing what the evidence says. If you can show me data that proves that a majority of women regret their abortions, than I’ll believe you. Be warned though, I’ve taken statistics and I know what steps a researcher must take to produce valid data. That guy who keeps promoting the “93% deal”? His research methods are flawed to the point of completely negating any conclusion that he draws.
In Ottawa, a parliamentary committee spent the day discussing a complex issue of medical ethics.
The committee is studying Canada’s policy on organ transplants. On Tuesday, it looked at the ethics of removing organs from brain-dead patients, organs that can save the lives of people in need of a transplant.
Dr. Ruth Oliver told the committee she considers herself lucky. Almost 22 years ago, she was taken to hospital because of problems with a pregnancy. She lost a lot of blood and slipped into a coma. Oliver was clinically dead, but doctors revived her.
She worries doctors today might not be as quick to resuscitate someone in her condition. She thinks they might be more interested in harvesting their organs and that’s wrong.
“The life of a donor is as important as the life of a potential recipient. Both lives are of precious value and everything must be done for each life.”
Oliver says Canada needs to ensure that before doctors remove the organs of someone who is brain-dead, they are absolutely certain there is no hope of reviving that person.
She got support from Dr. Michael Brear. Brear is a maverick in the medical field. He believes that even when patients are brain-dead, it’s wrong to extract their organs. He told the committee that’s merely sacrificing one life to save another.
Again, a few cases is not enough to make a blanekt generalization.
There are plenty of studies that prove this is the case.
Gotta run for now, but I’ll provide studies for you later when I get a chance ;)
“Enigma, read Jacqueline’s, Lauren’s, and Valerie’s recent posts on this for your answer.”
None of these answers have explained to me why a fetus should have rights that human beings do not.
“If someone created you by their actions, and gave you that kidney, they shouldn’t have the right to take it away from you, and yes, you’d have every right to insist they let you keep it.”
None of these situations is analogous with abortion. Unwilling creation does not entail obligation.
Abortion is a unique case because “bodily donation” occurs before the woman is aware of it. Since she was unaware and may not have wanted to donate her body, she has every right to end the arrangement.
A proper analogy would be as follows: A person goes in for a routine surgery (think ACL or something like that.) While on the table, another person in a different surgery room flatlines and needs either a new kidney or a new liver within minutes. You happen to be a perfect match. The doctor attending you decides to take the needed organ from you in order to save the life of another individual.
Once the violated individual wakes up, he/she is informed of the situation. This violated person has every right to demand the organ back since they never agreed to donate it in the first place.
I need to go as well, so the rest of your points must wait until later.
Doug, This is the message you should take away from that post…
the value judgment that there are no real value judgments, the dogma against dogma.
MK, why? Who do you see saying “there are no real value judgments”?
There are all manner of value judgments. People make them, groups make them, societies, etc. make them, for real. From culture to culture, and time to time, many of them are the same, over and over. People simply really do feel that way, and the laws reflect it.
Doug
Yes Doug,
(She says patiently)
but they are subjective.
You say that there are no objective moral value judgements. But that is a value judgement…
YOUR value judgment is that there are no objective value judgments.
And your dogma is to be dogmatically against dogma.
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