Most misguided people on the planet: Pro-abort youth
16-yr-old Max Kamin-Cross appears to have a lot on the ball.
The Rochester, NY, teen writes about himself, “I am an avid rock climber and race for my school’s alpine ski team. I also shoot on a Junior Olympic Archery competition team and participate in Model United Nations, while taking several AP classes.”
But for such a smart kid, Kamin-Cross is sure headed in a foolish direction, because Kamin-Cross is a budding pro-abort….
A “fired up” Kamin-Cross reported July 19 at RH Reality Check about Planned Parenthood’s recently held 2010 Organizing and Policy Summit:
Before I go on, can I just say….WOW! Five hundred youth and adult advisors from around the country… converging on Washington, DC for three days. It was an amazing thing to see and to be a part of.
This just continues to prove my point – teens do care but just need someone to take the first step. At the OPS in 2009, Cecile Richards, President of PP, issued a challenged to increase the attendance for 2010’s conference. We succeeded. Over 100 more people attended OPS 2010 than 2009; almost 300 of them were youth….
One new addition at this conference was the first meeting of PP’s Young Leaders Advisory Board. Twenty of PP’s most visionary young adults (including me!) from 14 different states were selected to take part in this new initiative. I can’t go into the specifics, but be prepared for some fantastic new PP campaigns and initiatives….
Ok, stop. Max, do you realize that for the 300 youth at the PP conference, 100 others were killed by abortion – likely by PP, the United States’ largest abortion provider? Do you realize PP was working its damnedest 16 years ago to enable your mother to kill you? Ask those PP reps if they would have supported (and made money from) your death. Speaking of, do you realize all the PP reps around you make a very good living off of abortion? They’re just using you.
So, really, Max? How wise is it to trust, support, and even volunteer for the very people who were striving 16 years ago to see you dead? And they would have made a pretty penny off your death at that. I mean, really, Max?
BTW, the 2010 Students for Life of America conference this past January had to close registration for “max”ing out at 1,200 students from 2 dozen states and 3 countries.
There’s a reason today’s youth are overwhelmingly pro-life, Max. They’re on to pro-aborts. They’ve wised up. I sure hope you do, too.
[Photo via RH Reality Check]
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Students for Life rocks my world.
Max, I’m 30. I remember realizing as a child that the pro-aborts shrilling at me would not have batted an eye had my mother chosen to have me sucked out her womb. That always chilled my blood.
I was 14 and volunteered at a crisis pregnancy center. That was the year you were born Max. I was out there defending your right to be born. I was out there arguing with adults about the humanity of unborn children like you Max.
There is NO EXCUSE for kids today to be pro-abortion. You kids have more information at your fingertips that I didn’t have when I was growing up. you have the internet. My parents didn’t buy a computer and hook up to the internet until I was almost out of the house. But you have that. There is fetoscopy and fetology. you can SEE the baby is clearly a living human being. You probably have ultrasounds of YOURSELF as a fetus. I didn’t have that because ultrasounds were not routine in 1980 when I was a fetus.
Come one Max. you’re obviously not stupid. Don’t be brainwashed by those who want you to labor to ensure their pockets are lined with blood money. Be a MAN and speak out for life. Real men are pro-life. Real men don’t champion the destruction of their future children.
Max, You’re too young to be a community organizer and out to save the world (as you mentioned in your bio). Play your sports, study hard and learn about the real world, not your obviously narrow one.
What’s appealing about abortion? Are you looking to just fit in somewhere? If so, keep looking, Im sure you’ll find a more upbeat crowd than PP and NARAL.
When I was in high school and college I went on several “leadership” youth events ranging from state youth legislatures to model UNs. In all cases they were totally biased toward an extreme liberal, anti-Christian world view. Combine that with the liberal bias of the education system and you would have to be in a coma to not understand that our youth are being stolen from us. It is very intentional. They’re being made to feel as though they are sophisticated and smart, when all they are is indoctrinated and programmed.
why are you guys picking on Max? There are thousands, (maybe millions) of pro choice teenagers you can throw insults at. You seem surprised that a “smart teenager” would be pro choice, as if that’s some kind of contradiction.
Ed, I disagree. As Jill said, most American youth are pro-life. We can think for ourselves. (I’m 22.)
“United Stated’ largest abortion provider?”
watch those typos….
Some kind of contradiction? It’s absolutely a contradiction! Max just doesn’t realize that between 1/4 and 1/3 of his classmates were killed before they were born. Hopefully he and the other youths that attended with him will wake up.
It’s interesting how you ask Max not labor for the “Pro-Aborts” in order to “line their pockets with blood money,” yet here you are Ms. Stanek and the rests of the “activists,” a “professional” speaker, blogger and columnist on Pro-Life. Which I am sure, in some form or another, puts the food on your table and keeps the lights on in your house. The one thing you shouldn’t be is a hypocrite.
America was built on the premise that people have the right to do what they want with their individual selves, within the bounds of the law, and as it stands right now abortion is a legal right for women. Frankly it should always stand as the law; the government shouldn’t be allowed to pick and choose who has what medical procedures. This is between the doctor and the patient only. By the way; why is it that every argument the Pro-Lifers have is based on Christian (biblical) arguments, which has no ground in the legal system, hence the separation of church and state.
You people should figure out something else to focus all your energies and attention on, like go feed the hungry or house the homeless. These people really need your help, probably the product of forced births, but none-the-less could certainly use the help. And out of curiosity, how many “saved” babies have any of you people adopted? None is my guess, just keep pushing your propaganda, but don’t actually get in the trenches. This is the usual MO of “activists” such as yourselves.
Hal,
You are so funny. Why should you be offended by this story? Max put himself out there. And he’s not just pro-choice, he’s a pro-abort (see Jill’s title).
By the way; why is it that every argument the Pro-Lifers have is based on Christian (biblical) arguments, which has no ground in the legal system, hence the separation of church and state.
If you’d like to learn about the non-religious arguments against abortion and the involvement of non-Christians in the movement, please click on my name.
Or you can not click and continue your ad hominem attacks in ignorant bliss. Just don’t expect anyone here to take you seriously.
All I can say is PP and all involved will be accountable to God, because those who choose to support death, choose death. I wanna live and experience life. Not exist. God says, “do not murder”, and “save those being carried away to death.” God is much bigger then PP and once america sees abortion, I believe they will be set free and abortion will be rejected. It is a dangerous territory to take a life which God has created. My generation is lost, but I stand up for life because once I saw abortion, it was then I too rejected it! Our generation must see it, because PP hides behind their words and descriptions “tissue” etc. Look again America, is that tissue?
This reminds me of business school where I argued some other topic. The girl thought she was being so “empowered” and overthrowing my arguments (not regarding abortion, but rather, another topic) by saying to me that she was going to do — and that was that. People cheered her, but what she didn’t realize (that I did, even before that time) that there were serious health/emotional/psychological consequences to the choices she was making and this wasn’t even abortion (but some other serious decision with future consequences).
People think they’re so smart saying “I’m going to stand up for women’s rights–if a woman wants to have an abortion that’s her business!” They ignore the evidence and many stories of women who have had abortions and suffered greatly for them. I have even met women who say they don’t regret their abortions–that makes me even sadder because they’ve competely bought into the lies the abortion industry feeds people.
To see young people buying into those lies is painful. Hindsight is 20/20 and sometimes it just plain sucks the life outta you. I so hope he doesn’t make anymore decisions (that he’s already made) to cause him the tremendous grief he could experience later. I know so many people that at the ages of 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 19 made decisions, only to 1-10 or more years later deeply regret it.
We’re so good at burying our heads in the sand over the consequences of the choices we make today. I can only say, I try harder to make better choices, I don’t always succeed, but it’s easier to live with the hardship of making the RIGHT choice rather than the regret of making the WRONG choice later.
Hello Kelsey,
I stand corrected, and promptly apologize to you and your group specifically. My statement was certainly aimed at the majority of the arguments made against Pro-Choice legislation. Although I still fundamentally disagree with your group’s rhetoric, at least there’s a group taking on the argument with logic and reason. I’m sure debates with you would prove far more entertaining than that of the traditional Pro-Lifer.
Regards
The word “pro-choice” is deceptive to people on all sides of this issue, since studies show most abortions are unwanted or coerced, and many forced, sometimes violently … and an unwanted, coerced or forced ultimatum is not what most of us think of as “choice.”
(See the free Forced Abortion in America report and fact sheet w/ citations, http://www.theunchoice.com/coerced.htm)
Unwanted abortions are common – a profound human rights abuse to mothers that cannot be presumed to be their “choice.” Public rhetoric should reflect “abortion rights advocates” not “pro-choice,” since ultimatums, negligence and threats or even homicide – the #1 killer of pregnant women – do not reflect “choice” in the fair understanding of the term.
For facts to share, see: http://www.theunchoice.com/whateveryamerican.htm
The word “pro-choice” is deceptive to people on all sides of this issue, since studies show most abortions are unwanted or coerced, and many forced, sometimes violently … and an unwanted, coerced or forced ultimatum is not what most of us think of as “choice.”
(See the free Forced Abortion in America report and fact sheet w/ citations, http://www.theunchoice.com/coerced.htm)
Unwanted abortions are common – a profound human rights abuse to mothers that cannot be presumed to be their “choice.” Public rhetoric should reflect “abortion rights advocates” not “pro-choice,” since ultimatums, negligence and threats or even homicide – the #1 killer of pregnant women – do not reflect “choice” in the fair understanding of the term.
For facts to share, see: http://www.theunchoice.com/whateveryamerican.htm
Ashley,
Actually, growing up, and even after growing up, it has occurred to me that if my parents weren’t the selfLESS and loving people they are, they could’ve aborted me on purpose (after all, if you only went by blood related siblings, I’m kid number 5–I have 2 adopted siblings, as well as 4 sisters and a younger brother who are blood related). It also has occurred to me that if my parents hadn’t gone to the same high school or even met, I might not have even existed. Those are pretty big and powerful things and has made me see how incredible life can be.
Not every argument for the pro-life side is religious/Christian as Kelsey pointed out. I’ve even heard of pro-life atheists.
Pro-life-ism isn’t regulated to the religious or even to the Christian denominations, it’s for anyone who believes that our most basic right is the right to life. The right to live.
Mark B…Jill Stanek was a nurse. I know nurses can make a very comfortable salary because my mom is also a registered nurse. Jill gave up her career to speak out for the unborn. I am sure that whatever money Jill makes isn’t comparable to what she could have made in the medical field.
It is not us pro-lifers who make billions of dollars of abortion. That would be the abortion industry. My local Birthright center doesn’t receive tax money though Planned Parenthood does. Everyone who works there is unpaid and all the items are donated by pro-lifers. We don’t make a penny off of it. It is the abortion industry that gets rich from selling abortion. Abby Johnson was Planned Parenthood’s employee of the year. She had a change of heart and left the abortion industry and openly talks about how selling abortions is PP’s bread and butter. Its how they make their money.
Ashley…my cousin had a miscarriage and a month later concieved her daughter. Even though she loves her little girl and is so glad to have her she still grieves that other child who existed but was lost.
My mom has always been pro-life so I was never in danger of being aborted. But it does bother me that the pro-choice side worked hard so that I could be aborted. It offends me that I existed and was a living, growing human being and yet they advocated the procedure that would destroy me. It bothers me that 1/3 of my generation is missing.
My statement was certainly aimed at the majority of the arguments made against Pro-Choice legislation. Although I still fundamentally disagree with your group’s rhetoric, at least there’s a group taking on the argument with logic and reason.
MarkB, you’re still wrong. Even as an atheist pro-lifer who has been involved with the movement for years, I’m not going to throw the religious members of the movement under the bus and castigate them as Bible thumpers who can’t make a coherent, SECULAR argument against abortion. The majority of pro-life arguments have nothing to do with religion.
Take a few minutes and write down as many pro-life arguments as you can think of. If you look at that list and all you see is religious arguments, then you really don’t understand pro-life reasoning.
The fact of the matter is that there are few differences between the way that an atheist will argue against abortion and the way that a Christian/Jew/Muslim/Krishna would. The only difference is that I’m perceived to be some harbinger of secular reasoning, while they’re viewed as biased individuals incapable of thinking beyond what their religion teaches.
Ya know, I think often about how easy it would have been for my mother to abort me.
When I was conceived, my father was in the middle of a divorce with his first wife…
EVERYONE thought my mother should have had an abortion.
“He might go back to his wife…”
“You don’t need to have a child with a man in his position…”
But she chose not to… and here I am.
It’s amazing, if she had decided “Well, I don’t want a kid… it was just an accident anyway” and aborted me, I wouldn’t be here. Instead, she took responsibility for that accident.
And, I agree with everyone else who says not all pro-lifers are religious.
I don’t believe in God. But, that doesn’t mean God doesn’t exist.
I just wont believe in anything blindly.
In my mind, ghosts, God, Bigfoot, the Lock Ness Monster, and aliens (the ones from outer space!) aren’t real until I have what I feel is real, solid proof.
That’s why I’m Agnostic… and I’m also extremely pro-life.
I say..let Max and his pro-abort colleagues be.
If they want to enter into PP’s child sacrifice culture and be one of those that propagate this horrible practice, so be it..that’s their choice.
They will either grow old coming into realization of what they are fighting for and leave (like Abby Johnson)..or grow old childless, volunteering as a deathscort,or even heading up a PP temple of Doom himself wondering why the pro-life community has grown so large with a lot more young people.
As the Chinese saying goes…”be careful what you wish for”….
MarkB
I adopted an “unwanted” baby. He’s 19 now and is often a pain in the behind, but I love him anyway.
Thank God for Kids for Life … at least there are some youth with wisdom.
I don’t see any reason for calling Max one of the “dumbest people on the planet.” He is 16. He is a CHILD. Name calling like that is unnecessary and cruel. I certainly don’t hold the same beliefs that I did when I was 16. I made decisions at that age that I wouldn’t even consider as an adult. Maybe one day Max will grow up to regret speaking out for abortion. Maybe he won’t, but I still don’t think he deserves to be called insulting names by a grown up woman. It’s as immature as mocking peoples’ appearances. Misinformed? Brainwashed? Confused? Maybe. Dumb? He doesn’t sound dumb to me.
I could have easily been aborted. My mother is pro-choice, and I was unplanned. I have never wasted a single minute feeling bad about it, and it’s not why I’m against abortion. Really, there are about a billion different factors that could have happened differently in the course of history that would have led to me not existing.
Abortion is wrong and should be illegal because it ends human lives, not because it has prevented me, and anyone else under 36, from having more friends and peers.
Why does Max’s age matter? The pro-aborts have been arguing for abortion since way before 16 years ago.\
Also, I’m a pro-life antitheist.
I agree that there’s no reason to call this young man “dumb.” He is seems intelligent and might be a nice person — just misguided.
Mark B., I can name 5 adoptees without even straining my brain, two of whom were older children when they were adopted.
If a woman is pregnant, guess what Mark, the doctor has at least 2 patients, more if they are twins. It is not a woman’s choice, because about half the children murdered before they are born are female and getting killed sure takes away your choice. Have I mentioned God, Mark? I didn’t? Wow, I can post a pro-life comment without religion, can you believe it. By the way, “separation of church and state” appears in NO United States Constitution, nor the Declaration of Independence. However, it did appear in the SOVIET constitution, but nice of you to keep showing how some of you lack education. (maybe if there was more book learnin’ in school instead of sexual position learnin’…) We do have a phrase called “freedom of religion” and notice how the word “of” is not spelled f.r.o.m. Amazing.
MarkB, prolifers aren’t ALL hypocrites. I know many who bust their rumps trying to make sure that women and children born and unborn have other and better options than abortion.
Of course if you care about saving an unborn life, you are utterly responsible to the life of the woman who carries that child, and to both of them ever after the birth as well as before!
I myself have worked professionally and personally to create other & better choices, for decades. Including work on poverty and hunger and child abuse prevention and treatment.
Most recently I have been involved with a nonsectarian group called All our Lives (www.allourlives.org) that advocates women’s *other* reproductive rights, both for their own sake and for their value in reducing abortion.
Mark,
Abortion is between a doctor and their patient only?
I didn’t have a doctor. I didn’t have insurance or a job either. I didn’t have a spouse or a pastor.
Are you talking about the abortionist? He didn’t talk to me or even acknowledge me. After he killed my daughter, he left the room.
I guess if we were talking about abortion being only about one body that argument might fly. But sorry, Mark. There is another body involved. The body of a growing, full alive preborn human being that is killed for profit.
Please point out any and all religious references in my statements. Thanks.
Sydney,
You should check your facts before discussing the finances of Pro-Life groups, such as Birthright or Carenet. There are numbers states that provide direct funding to these groups, and there are other states who offer funds from the sales of license plates or other items. On top of this, the federal government has supplied funds to such groups since 2001, somewhere in the tens of millions. Granted, it’s certainly not the same amount as Planned Parenthood, but most of the groups are religiously based, and therefore do not qualify for such federal funds.
To further, the bulk of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are in the form of pregnancy prevention, STD detection/treatment/prevention, cancer testing/screening, and even infertility treatments. Only about three percent of the services they provide came in the form of abortions. Services that are much needed in our society, especially for the uninsured citizens. The services offered by Birthright are nowhere near the same.
And I am sure Ms. Stanek makes a comfortable living as well, comparable to being a nurse, but I certainly applaud her giving up her career to speak on behalf of Pro-Lifers. It is definitely admirable.
Just curious.
How many children have you adopted Mark? How many soup kitchens, Help the Homeless projects, Big Brother organizations do you give your time and money and talent to? How many starving children have you fed?
If you do not do any of the above or I never lift another finger to help anyone, how does it follow that abortion does not kill a a growing full alive preborn human child?
Nobody’s picking on any kids. Max wants to put his face on the scene, then he has to take the criticism. Just because those with pro-genocide philosophies are young doesn’t mean they should be allowed to proceed without due scrutiny.
In other words, his youthful misguidedness might be cute if it weren’t deadly.
Ninek,
Thanks for the history lesson, but the Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times, because it was written over three-hundred years ago. In order for it to be living and breathing, it must change, as does the society who lives by it, and who cares about the Soviets.
I am glad that you know of people who have adopted unwanted children, but sadly this is the exception and not the rule.
Marysia,
I didn’t call ALL of the Pro-Lifers hypocrites, just ones that don’t live by the values in which they preach. The ones that will call a sixteen year old kid a “dummy” for speaking his about beliefs, saying he is misguided, but go on doing the very same thing. It just so happens to be for the other team. Read my post again.
Pro-life Atheist,
Thanks for telling my I am wrong…for my opinion?? No you’re wrong for your opinion. Ha, there, got you.
To even consider that the majority of the arguments for Pro-Life are not based on religious reasons is myopic at best.
carla,
I am sorry you had a terrible experience with a physician, but you certainly can’t use your experience as the litmus test or rules which by all doctor / patient care occurs. Had it not been for an abortion, I would have lost my wife of several years. How do I compare the two totally different scenarios? You can’t, so please stop trying to.
Criticize and scrutinize him all you want, Alex. Point out the errors in his beliefs and prove him wrong using scientific facts (we can do that! It’s the best part of being pro-life!). Show Max just how wrong he is. Go for it.
Just leave the immature name-calling to his adolescent classmates.
If young Max is is so impressed by 500 youth and adults converging on the nation’s capital, he would pass out at the site of close to 400,000 this past year at the March for Life–fully half of whom were under 25.
Then Max would need to assess why so many in the dead of winter FOR life, and why so few in the warmer weather AGAINST life.
Mark B, please post a link to the Amendment with the phrase “separation of church and state.” I will pay you $100 for proof the phrase exists. I just re-read the Constitution recently, but if I were wrong, I’d be man enough to admit it.
I don’t care about the Soviets, but plenty of un-americans do hope to make this a communist paradise.
Planned Parenthood makes most of its money killing kids and you can find that on their own website.
I didn’t have a physician Mark. I had an abortionist who killed my child for profit. I am not comparing stories. I am stating the facts of my abortion story which is irrefutable. You are making a comparison to your wifes abortion.
You are hardly sorry.
My questions
How does a 16 year old boy benefit from Planned Parenthood? How does Max benefit from abortion?
WHY is he involved?
Oh, I can’t believe I missed it: “Thanks for the history lesson, but the Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times, because it was written over three-hundred years ago”
Bwahahahahaha! Sorry, I know it’s not polite to laugh, but I just can’t help myself :>)!
Oh, wait, maybe Mark is posting from the future! Hello McFly!!
MarkB,
I am a pro-lifer who has adopted a baby who was almost aborted at 20 wks by her 13 yr old birth mother who was pregnant as a result of rape. We offered to adopt specifically to give this young lady an option other than abortion, which she was under tremendous pressure from the clini staff, abortionist, family, & other authority figures to have.
I am also a certified foster parent who has completed a homestudy & the required classes to adopt.
I started a pro-life group that seeks to cover the spectrum of the abortion issue from education & post abortion help to assisting those in a crisis pregnancy w/ special attention on teens & also men. We work w/ the crisis pregnancy centers, but also with Children’s Services. We, as a group, have collected & donated book bags, lunch bags, & school supplies for EVERY foster chld in our county of school age. We donate clothes & toys for the foster children also. Further, we actively educate about foster care & adoption & have successfully watched several pro-life couples become certified foster-to-adopt parents who currently have children living w/them. I know many who are interested in adopting & who need only to get educated on the process & figure out a way to afford it. They have the heart for these children & could afford to raise the child, but not everyone has the money to cover the upfront costs of an adoption. The problem is not that people don’t want these children. The problem is that the process to adopt is, for many, overwhelmingly expensive.
So, I know many pro-lifers who have adopted or who are actively trying to adopt. Others who want to & will once they can figure out how to fund it. Many pro-lifers also make a time & financial commitment to the women who choose life. We are making LIFETIME commitments to these children & to their biological families. We are raising them, caring for their physical, emotional, spiritual,financial, relational etc… needs. We are not making a dime off of helping these children & in fact, doing so & helping their mothers often involves great sacrifice (of money, time, emotion, etc…) but we do it out of love & a respect for human life & dignity. We cry w/ them & are willing to be inconvenienced for DECADES in order to help total strangers.
Someone who is pro-choice basically says to their friend or loved one…or total stranger, “I support whatever you wanna do.” Wow. That is easy. Maybe that person will have a conversation & be a shoulder to cry on while the decision is being made. They discuss the pros of the abortion decision & support abortion as a choice. Maybe they are even willing to give some money to cover the cost or offer a ride to the clinic. Some might even hang around after the procedure while the woman tries to rest. But basically, they can then all just go on as if the whole thing never happened. Go back to the way it was “before”. Maybe they are out a few bucks, & a few hours. I have never had a pro-choice person offer o adopt & raise the child of a loved on or friend or even a stranger to give that woman a real, tangible CHOICE. Never heard of a pro-choice person make the choice other than abortion seem realistic…MAKE it realisic by laying it all on the line for a woman. The abortion INDUSTY profits off every abortion sold to a woman. Upwards of $250 for a early 1st trimester, but generally much higher. While loved ones may not financially profit (unless you are the father & get out of child support), but they still avoid a lot of inconvenience or personal upheaval. Many women “hear” the “Hey, I support whatever you want to do” as abandonment of sorts…they do not feel supported to have the child when abortion is presented as an “option”…they see it as the “choice” others hope she makes…especially if that line comes from the father and her parents.
How many kids have you adopted? How many have you fostered? How much would you be willing to give to offer women a REAL choice?
carla,
If you must know about my philanthropic endeavors, by all means, I will tell you. I donate to the United Way, Amnesty International and Meals on Wheels. I also donate my time and energy to the Kiwanis Club. But you’re right; none of this is relevant to the argument. What is relevant is the right to choose, which should never go away.
Ninek,
My apologies for using the layman’s interpretation of the first amendment to the Constitution of the US, but for your sake, I will post the actual verbiage below, which clearly describes a separation of church and state.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
My apologies for the math error, and thanks for being a jerk about it. However, if you are in anyway insinuating that I am un-American because I do not believe in the same ideology as you. For your information, I didn’t curse any of the citizens of our nation while defending the Constitution of the US in Afghanistan. I am only exercising what our First Amendment expresses. Thank you and you’re welcomed.
Also, you should re-examine what Planned Parenthood actually does, because you are way off on your numeric (propaganda) data, so if your going to make fun of my math, you better check yours as well.
Poor MarkB, you need to get over to PP’s website and read their own annual report. They haven’t posted a new one in quite a while, gee, don’t know why.. But seriously, check out their own financial numbers that they publish about themselves. They do indeed make most of their $$ off murdering children. Don’t be a wuss, Mark. A developing human being may be defined by words like teenager, newborn, fetus, embryo, but a developing human is not a lump of tissue or a blob. Choice is a word you use to describe murder because it makes you feel better. 99% of the abortions performed in America are elective abortions on healthy women that kill healthy developing children. No one wants to endanger a woman’s life for example who bears an ectopic pregancy, but Mark, this may suprise you, Planned Parenthood does not treat ectopic pregnancies.
Thanks for the post and glad I get to keep my $$!! And, please, don’t offer to help Max with is homework.
“. Only about three percent of the services they provide came in the form of abortions”
This is only because they cook the books and report an abortion as 8 different services so every abortion patient counts as an abortion, exam, ultrasound, birth control, counseling ect. The reality is that all of these services are tied to the abortion. The woman comes in for an abortion, and would not be getting any of the peripheral services if not for the abortion.
It’s dishonest to pretend that abortion is only a small part of PP’s services.
By the way; why is it that every argument the Pro-Lifers have is based on Christian (biblical) arguments, which has no ground in the legal system, hence the separation of church and state.
Posted by: MarkB at July 21, 2010 5:09 PM
—-
I have a completely secular argument based upon human biological science and valid philosophical logic:
http://www.thrufire.com/blog/2009/02/biosled-anti-abortion-argument/
“I have never once heard a pro-choicer or an abortion doctor call a fetus a “blob of tissue.”
I’ve heard it too many times to count. “A bunch of cells” is also popular.
Poster child for what happens to youth when you don’t teach them right from wrong.
We likely will find out later that one of his parents is either an abortionist or PP exec.
Just wait for it.
MarkB,
You act as if pregnancy is a disease. It is natural
and does not need to be prevented like
malaria would need to be prevented.
I love how this article starts out by telling you what a smart, upstanding young man Max is and then calls him stupid because he disagrees with them…
There is NO separating the anti-choice movement into a religious half and non-religious half because the entire argument is based on a religious belief “life is sacred”. That is a fundamental religious belief and it is not shared by atheists.
All of your “non-Christian” arguments could also be made about a brain tumor but in this context it means more to you because of that religious belief. The idea that life is sacred is a made up concept in the interest of self preservation. As the late GREAT George Carlin once said… “Only living people care about the sanctity of life”. Go ask MLK, or JFK if life is sacred… you can’t because they’re dead, and the dead could give a sh*t about the sanctity of life.
The simple truth is that the anti-choice movement “and religious people in general” want to tell the rest of us how to live our lives from atop their perceived moral high ground. If it’s not abortion rights its drugs, prostitution, gambling, drinking, sexual orientation, or just what days of the week you can buy whiskey. They want to control us all because they know better than we do.
It’s very tell tale when you write a post saying that not all anti-choice people are religious and it is immediately followed by another post telling us we are all going to answer to god…
This is a religious argument from the very start.
It’s not ok to kill an unborn child but bombing a afghan school full of live children or stomping the heads of American Indian children with boot heels to save bullets has been ok… You people CHOOSE to let live or let die every day and that’s just with humans! Your attitude toward all other life on this planet is one of choice but this one is different because now we are talking about beings with a soul… yet another religious belief.
So to anyone reading this website thinking you are going to change anyone else’s mind, forget it. They have all been taught false beliefs since they were children and naive enough to actually believe them and you not going to change their minds now.
The anti-choice movement lies. They lie non-stop in the most sensational way they can to attract the most attention. They make wildly inaccurate claims to our face and then stand there waiting for us to point out their BS just so they can start a conversation of guilt. That what religion is built on… guilt and fear. That’s why they are called GOD FEARING PEOPLE! They are afraid of repercussions from a non-existent authority figure. They are afraid we are keeping souls out of heaven and that will upset god…
I have no such fear.
You act as if pregnancy is a disease. It is natural
and does not need to be prevented like
malaria would need to be prevented.
Posted by: Lizfromnebraska at July 21, 2010 6:05 PM
a great many people, at some time in their lives, want to prevent a pregnancy.
MarkB–I agree, Jill Stanek could be doing something way kinder and more constructive than singling out a 16 year old and going on and on about what a “dummy” he is. It is indeed hypocritical. And mean, even if i don’t agree with this young man on abortion.
I’m glad you are aware though that some of us who identify as prolife walk the walk in regard to all lives.
a great many people, at some time in their lives, want to prevent a pregnancy.
And that proves?
Biggz said:
There is NO separating the anti-choice movement into a religious half and non-religious half because the entire argument is based on a religious belief “life is sacred”. That is a fundamental religious belief and it is not shared by atheists.
————————————————–
Hi! Long time reader, first time poster. I’m an Athiest and I’m pro-life. I may not believe life is “sacred” in the biblical sense, but I believe that all human life has inherent value and I am against killing innocent humans who are incapable of protecting themselves.
“The anti-choice movement lies. They lie non-stop in the most sensational way they can to attract the most attention. They make wildly inaccurate claims”
…such as?
Biggz: “All of your “non-Christian” arguments could also be made about a brain tumor but in this context it means more to you because of that religious belief.”
Tumors don’t turn into children after 9 months of growth.
Fetuses are not a disease.
“The simple truth is that the anti-choice movement “and religious people in general” want to tell the rest of us how to live our lives from atop their perceived moral high ground. ”
This is called the Psychologist’s Fallacy.
“It’s very tell tale when you write a post saying that not all anti-choice people are religious …”
Well I’m glad I could step in and validate that tale.
“It’s not ok to kill an unborn child but bombing a afghan school full of live children or stomping the heads of American Indian children with boot heels to save bullets has been ok”
I don’t know by whose standards of “ok” you are measuring by, but obviously that person is not familiar with either the Pro-Life movement or Law of Armed Conflict.
“They have all been taught false beliefs since they were children and naive enough to actually believe them and you not going to change their minds now.”
Doesn’t this work both ways? I was “pro-choice” until I turned about 17 years old because until then I had no opinion on the matter, and the Pro-Choice movement convinced me that if I wasn’t against them, I was with them. This all changed when one of my best friends told me that he had been adopted at birth because his mother couldn’t raise him herself.
“I have no such fear.”
Good to her that we have something in common.
A whole generation of people were told the blob of tissue lie! Do you need to go around and take a head count? Well, I urge you to hop over to SilentNoMore and start watching those video testimonials.
Anyway kids, I gotta sign off for a while. I wish my fellow pro-lifers an awesome evening, keep up the good work! And as for the rest of you, do what you want, it is the whole of your law.
Ashley, I’m like your sister Halle in that I’m only alive because my unborn sibling died. (In my case, my mom had a miscarriage.) I always try to remember that I am alive because someone else is dead. For whatever reason, I’m here and my sibling’s not, and I’m not going to squander the life that someone else could have had. I think it’s probably something like what people who have had heart transplants experience. When you know that your life is only possible because of someone else’s death, it can give you a whole different perspective.
I grew up with several adopted kids. One of my friends from high school was conceived when her mother was severely anorexic, and another one of my friends is blind in one eye, deaf in one ear, and only recently got a functioning jaw because her mother had meningitis when she was pregnant. My friend from high school is well on her way to becoming an opera singer and my other friend is probably an honest-to-God genius, but even people who accomplish nothing more than changing the TV channel have someone who loves them. It’s eerie to me to think that a lot of women in their mothers’ situations would have aborted my friends.
I agree with the comments saying that there’s not much use or compassion in calling Max “stupid”. If I were Max and I read this post, I’d probably think to myself, “Well, fine, they’re just a bunch of anti-choicers anyway, so if they think I’m stupid I must be doing something right.”
And that proves?
Posted by: Bethany at July 21, 2010 6:34 PM
Liz said pregnancy does not have to be prevented. A great many people disagree with her. What makes her right and everyone who wants to prevent pregnancy wrong? I can see legitimate reasons to support a ban on abortion, but once you start arguing that it’s wrong to prevent pregnancies, you should make clear that’s simply a personal preference or belief.
“I can see legitimate reasons to support a ban on abortion…” Hal
Such as?
“There is NO separating the anti-choice movement into a religious half and non-religious half because the entire argument is based on a religious belief “life is sacred”. That is a fundamental religious belief and it is not shared by atheists.”
Posted by: Biggz at July 21, 2010 6:24 PM
Uh, something creepy there folks. Obviously, atheists don’t have religious beliefs. Duh, of course, however, the don’t value life thing is damned creepy.
FYI, plenty of atheists think abortion is positively disgusting and just can’t decide whether abortion or its advocates are more disgusting.
Liz said pregnancy does not have to be prevented. A great many people disagree with her. What makes her right and everyone who wants to prevent pregnancy wrong?
Posted by: Hal at July 21, 2010 7:40 PM
For thousands of years, people have known how to prevent pregnancy. So this is a pretty silly discussion.
Max seems proud of his accomplishments so far but can’t seem to make the connection that abortion steals the future away from another human being.
Try thinking Max, i.e., using your brain.
No one’s claiming that fetuses are a disease that needs to be cured. A tumor is not a disease that needs to be cured. In fact a tumor is just an internal growth of cells.
As for the lies… There are too many to list.
How about “The Pill Kills” I have never heard anything quite so funny. The pill kills fish? This entire study was done in the UK and is inconclusive, not to mention pointless…
“PP is out to make money” what’s an abortion cost $250 $300? When my father had a lung tumor removed it cost over 30,000 dollars?!?! 300 bucks barely covers the cost of the doctors and nurses time let alone medication and disposal of medical waste. Most PP have an internal fundraising program where they do bake sales and other promotions to employees only. These funds go into accounts that are to pay for paps, birth control, disease treatments, and yes abortions that people without insurance can get FOR FREE! Let me say that again. The employees of PP care so much about helping people with reproductive health that they pay for it out of their OWN pockets if someone cannot pay for it themselves. As for grant money LOL the government don’t give them enough to pay the electricity bill, and most of what they get in grants goes to disease prevention and treatment, not abortion.
“Abortion is violence” Well an abortion is less violent than an appendicitis operation, as there is no incision, stitches, or physical recovery to speak of. Just YOUR perception of violence against an undeveloped fetus.
I can go on and on….
As for adoption… There are WAY more kids waiting to be adopted than homes for them. Children are starving in the streets all over this planet. If you can look a starving child in the eye and tell them “sorry but the home we had open for you was taken by a newborn “which are wanted more” and feel good about yourself then I would have to ask why his life is worth less? On a more personal note, one of my best friends growing up was adopted by a man and his mail order Russian bride. A year afterward the husband left and my friend was raised by a huge Russian woman who was VERY mean. She didn’t speak English very well and so she couldn’t make much money by herself. She took every inch of this out on my friend growing up. He was beaten on a regular basis with whatever she could reach and he was made to sleep in the basement without a bed. He told me on a few occasions that he wished he had never been born to which I replied “You’re not thinking of suicide are you?” He would say “No I don’t want to be remembered as a coward.” After high school our lives went down different paths… He is now a 3 time felon serving a life sentence for accessory to murder which was his 3rd strike.
Adoption is not a glorious or even a happy path. Just ask all the kids at the Dave Thomas Foundation. To be shoved from state foster home to foster home while hoping someone might give you a family when so many never do get adopted and that’s just in the USA. Outside this country it’s much, much worse for children waiting for adoption. Most turn to crime and prostitution just to eat.
Good one Phil, that will show him.
“How about “The Pill Kills” I have never heard anything quite so funny”
Not funny if it’s your wife or daughter who develops DVT and dies due to the hormones in the Pill. This is a very real risk, and can happen to even very young women. It also acts to inhibit implantation, thus killing the newly conceived embryo.
So…No lie there. Next?
“”PP is out to make money”
Well they made 114 million dollar profit during the last fiscal year and have assets over 1 Billion. Yeah, looks like they’re making pretty good money there too.
So…No lie there. Next?
““Abortion is violence”
First of all physically dialating a woman’s cervix is a violent procedure, but disregarding that for a moment, I have to address your comment that the only violence is “our perception” of the violence received by the child. It’s not our perception, it’s reality. His arms and legs really are sucked apart by a vacuum or severed by a curret.
So..yes, abortion is violent. No lie there. Next?
“There are WAY more kids waiting to be adopted than homes for them.”
And many of htese children can not be adopted because their parents still retain parental rights. Further, you assume that if more babies were available for adoption, people would adopt less foster children. There is nothing to support this theory. Even if adoption is not an ideal solution, it is better than the above mentioned fate of having one’s limbs sucked off or chopped.
Try again.
Hal,
I can’t speak for Liz @ 6:05 PM, but I take her comment to mean that a person shouldn’t treat a baby like a disease that can be “cured” by abortion. Liz, please correct me if I’m wrong.
You act as if pregnancy is a disease. It is natural
and does not need to be prevented like
malaria would need to be prevented.
Posted by: Lizfromnebraska at July 21, 2010 6:05 PM
a great many people, at some time in their lives, want to prevent a pregnancy.
Posted by: Hal at July 21, 2010 6:25 PM
—————————————–
Hal, don’t try to be disingenuous, I expect better from you. A pregnancy does not HAVE to be prevented because it isn’t a disease. Preventing a pregnancy because it isn’t the right time to have children is nowhere near the same as, say, needing to prevent polio.
The normal course of polio is to cause disfigurement, pain, paralysis, and death.
The normal course of a pregnancy is to cause another human being to exist and eventually be born, grow up, etc.
But you are smart enough to know there is a difference between HAS to be and WANTS to be, so this was really a very petty post on your part. Again, I expect better from you.
Mark B… Birthright does not receive federal funds. Planned Parenthood does. The pro-lifers I have worked with do not live in a ritzy penthouse apartments. Cecile Richards, CEO of Planned Parenthood does.
But now that you’ve admitted you are a post-abortive father all your justification and clamoring to defend abortion makes sense. Its not any fun to listen to that still, small voice in your soul that whispers the irrefutable truth that your child has died a horrible, unnatural death.
“I was “pro-choice” until I turned about 17 years old because until then I had no opinion on the matter, and the Pro-Choice movement convinced me that if I wasn’t against them, I was with them. This all changed when one of my best friends told me that he had been adopted at birth because his mother couldn’t raise him herself.”
Posted by: Marc at July 21, 2010 6:51 PM
Great comment. You could change the minds of a lot of pro-choicers with that message. :)
A tumor is not a disease that needs to be cured. In fact a tumor is just an internal growth of cells.
Posted by: Biggz
———————————————
Um, newsflash, have you heard of this little thing called…. CANCER?
Hi Ashley.
” “but a developing human is not a lump of tissue or a blob.” I have never once heard a pro-choicer or an abortion doctor call a fetus a “blob of tissue.” I don’t know where this accusation comes from. I think it’s just something pro-lifers make up. ”
I don’t have time to search Jill’s blog now, so I guess I can only ask you to take my word for it, but I have seen that quite a few times from pro-choicers here. I’ll point it out the next time I see it.
Biggz…
Hear about all the lawsuits against Yaz? Women have died on it and been severely harmed. I was on Yaz. No one ever warned me about its dangers. My doc never discussed its risks with me. I guess I should have read that little packet with the microscopic legal jargon on it to fully realize I was ingesting synthetic hormones that could cause thrombosis, cancer, abortion. Silly me for trusting my doctor to be honest with me.
first trimester abortions cost 300-400 bucks a pop. you are right that a lung tumor removal cost way more. But there are not 1.2 MILLION lung tumor removals. And abortions take five minutes then its on to the next patient. nor do you have to pay for an OR with nurses. Most clinics don’t even have R.N.’s assisting. (thats in the news, not a lie. There are tons of non-medical people getting busted lately for assisting in abortions with no medical training!) Ever notice how most clinics are shabby buildings in low-rent buildings? Cheaper than a hospital for sure! So talk about a money maker!
Carol Everett ran a chain of abortion clinics in Texas. Read her book “Blood Money” which details how they cut corners and raked in the dough.
HI MarkB. Consider the following syllogism,
1. It is wrong to take the life of an innocent human being.
2. Abortion takes the life of an innocent human being.
Therefore, abortion is wrong.
While I have not defended either premise, I would be happy to give a full justification for either premise which involves nothing inherently “religious.” How would you say the above then is a religious argument?
Adoption is not a glorious or even a happy path Posted by: Biggz at July 21, 2010 8:48 PM
I am adopted, Biggz. And believe it or not, I am quite happy in life ;) Please don’t stereotype and stigmatize adoptees as screwed up people leading miserable lives. I know that kind of rhetoric suits your purpose, but it isn’t accurate.
Yes, there are adoption hardship stories. But it is also true that there are difficulties within families with biological children too. The fact is that being a child is sometimes difficult whether you’re adopted or raised by b-parents. And some kids, both biological and adopted, wind up in foster care.
Biggz wrote: “. . .my friend was raised by a huge Russian woman who was VERY mean. . . .She took every inch of this out on my friend growing up. He was beaten on a regular basis with whatever she could reach and he was made to sleep in the basement without a bed.”
Biggz, why didn’t you report this situation to Child Protective Services? There was help available for your friend.
I’d like for you to put exactly how many youth and young adults attend ONE pro-life conference, just to put the contrast in stark perspective. As one pro-abortion writer, Sally Jenkins wrote about NOW: ‘Organization of fewer and fewer older women.’ She may be pro-abortion, but she knew her facts, and acknowledged them. I wish the same could be said for all pro-abort people.
Hal,
Pregnancy is not a sexually transmitted disease.
It is a pefectly natural and normal condition for fertile women.
pp has a euphemistic motto: ‘Every child a wanted child.’
Which means in effect, ‘We will be more than happy to help you kill all but the wanted pre-natal children. Hell we will even kill the ‘wanted’children.’ [for a nominal fee].
[I have never read of an abortionist providing her/his services pro bono.]
And pp will help you get comfortable with the idea that you do not want your own child by dehumanizing him/her and convincing you that you though it is merely a matter of ‘choice’, the only acceptable ‘choice’ is one for a dead baby.
Youth is wasted on the young.
Also, I’m a pro-life antitheist.
Posted by: Nulono at July 21, 2010 3:11 PM
Nulono,
There is no such thing as an pro-life antitheist if the theist you are referring to is the one true God and the creator and essence of life itself.
Liz said that pregnancy does not need to be prevented in the way malaria needs to be prevented.
So you believe that pregnancy sometimes ought to be prevented. Fine.
We (I think this includes Hal) want malaria to be prevented all the time. There are not times in our lives where we want to get malaria, or even times when if we did get malaria we’d try to keep it. I am pretty sure almost no one wants malaria. There aren’t hundreds of thousands of people who are desperate to get malaria, and seeking medical treatment for their inability to contract malaria. Getting malaria is not an essential part of the human lifespan; none of us started out with our mother getting malaria. If malaria were wiped out, the human race would prosper more, not die out (assuming it weren’t done in such a way that some other part of the ecosystem were destroyed).
This is because malaria is a disease. For most people, the same thing could be said about any other disease. While there are some people who try to get some diseases at certain times, they would not mind, and I suspect would rejoice, if the disease were truly eradicated.
Pregnancy, however, is essential to the continuation of the human race. Many people want to get pregnant; I think most women would be upset if they were never able to be pregnant. Pregnancy is a normal, non-pathological biological process. All of us are here because of pregnancy–in fact, because of a long line of pregnancies. There are very few people who want to completely eradicate pregnancy, because that would mean the total extinction of the human race.
Biggz at July 21, 2010 8:48 PM said:
(emphasis mine.)
Fetus describes a development stage. What kind of fetus is it?
Science informs us through the law of biogenesis that species reproduce after their own kind – so if a human woman is pregnant, then it is a human fetus.
Medical science also informs us that a fetus is the stage which follows the embryonic – meaning all the organs are in place and are maturing.
Do you make decisions and live your life in the absence of sound evidence? Do you think people who advocate life do? If abortion were only about perceived violence against a human being then none of us would be worried. Could you explain how the evidence in the photo below shows only perceived violence and not real violence? If you were thrown into a wood chipper or if an industrial robot torn you apart – would that be only “perceived violence”?
I think you do real violence to the truth.
“That what religion is built on… guilt and fear. That’s why they are called GOD FEARING PEOPLE! They are afraid of repercussions from a non-existent authority figure. They are afraid we are keeping souls out of heaven and that will upset god…” Posted by: Biggz at July 21, 2010 6:24 PM
Biggz, you are clueless to what it means to be God fearing. But then again, you can’t possibly teach others about what you yourself haven’t taken the time to learn.
Stick to subjects you have passion about, i.e. supporting what caused the death of the above human. Your passion for death is directly caused by your refusal to be taught by those who are indeed God fearing.
http://www.catholic.org/international/international_story.php?id=28326
MarkB wrote: “[W]hy is it that every argument the Pro-Lifers have is based on Christian (biblical) arguments, which has no ground in the legal system, hence the separation of church and state?”
MarkB, you’re spouting script. Please read my post again. It is a post that questions Max’s logic.
What Max is doing is the equivalent of a concentration camp survivor inexplicably joining the Nazi prison camp guard, as an unpaid volunteer no less, to kill his brothers and sisters.
Let’s debate that, MarkB.
Also, I’ve heard everyone who complained about my rhetoric and think you’re right. I’m softening a few words. Thanks.
There is NO separating the anti-choice movement into a religious half and non-religious half because the entire argument is based on a religious belief “life is sacred”. That is a fundamental religious belief and it is not shared by atheists.
In a secular context, “life is sacred” simply means “life is valuable.” Are you saying that atheists don’t value life? In a civilized society, people who don’t value human life are sociopaths. Your comment is an insult to atheists.
The question then becomes one of defining human life. The pro-life side has answered that question time and time again– not with faith, but with science. Abortion advocates who deny prenatal life, or equate it with a “tumor,” are intellectually dishonest.
Jill,
I think “Dumb” is spot on. This is a bright young man who needs more than a minor course correction. That requires more than mild language. It requires a stern rebuke. 16 is old enough for such a rebuke. My Brooklyn elders would have used “Dumb @$$”.
So your approach blends the best of Socrates, Brooklyn, and Miss Manners.
Go get ’em Jill.
Nice article, Praxades. So it seems like Fr. Cantalamessa is saying that when we talk about the fear of the Lord, it is more like what today we would call “awe.” Would you say that is a quick and short way to answer the objection? That by “fear”, we do not mean “afraid” or “scared”, but more like “awe” or “wonderment”? Obviously that is dumbed down quite a bit, but I think that is the basic idea.
“They’re being made to feel as though they are sophisticated and smart, when all they are is indoctrinated and programmed.”
Posted by: Ed at July 21, 2010 1:42 PM
How true Ed. Many of these proabort kids are bright (IQ bright but not common sense bright). I believe many outspoken proabort teens didn’t get much direction/attention at home so they were easy prey for grooming by Snakes like Cecile Bichards. Teens as a whole are easy prey because they so want to fit in somewhere.
Prolife teens need to be assertive and let their proabort classmates know how badly they have been brainwashed. Show teens like Max the above photo and ask them to explain exactly what they are spouting off about and supporting.
Hey Gerard… :) I hear you, too. I just started thinking about Max himself, and particularly that he is 16. I really do want Max to reconsider his position. Not only is the pro-life position on the right side of history, and to Max’s personal benefit to internalize, Max would also be a wonderful asset to our side. So I think softening my tone stands a better chance of keeping Max’s mind open to what we’re saying.
Ashley, you might be interested in this article–http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/it-always-comes-back-abortion
“Yes, I have dwelled considerably on the possibility of not being born. . . . Of course it has shaped my thoughts on abortion and life in general. But in quite the opposite way that you describe. Rather than being sure that the world cannot survive without me, I’ve been grateful for every day that I’ve been given in this world. As I go about my daily life, I try to contribute to society positively, to raise my kids to do the same, to be loving and helpful to people around me. I consider myself a somewhat driven person, but I’m not guided by religion or an overinflated sense of self-worth. I’m guided by gratitude.
And yes, I can’t help but think that others should be given the same chance at life.”
Bobby, Awe and wonderment are great words to explain this ‘fear’. I have similiar feelings when I think about the life of the unborn child. How truly amazing.
I know pro-lifers think parents should skip birth control and just keep pushing out more babies, but it doesn’t seem to benefit anyone.
We’re talking about abortion here. Use all the condoms you want: that’s none of my business. But once a child has been conceived, killing is not an acceptable solution.
When asked what school administration said about students wearing Tshirts to school promoting “real” sex education that supports abortion Max writes:
“They are unable to ask us to remove a piece of clothing because of the message it sends, unless it promotes drug or tobacco use or disrupts the classroom (such as having a shirt with flashing lights). There had been some discussion about it the week before, so the administration knew it was going to happen and had done their research about the legal issues. Just in case, I had discussed the whole situation with someone from the NYCLU (a chapter of the ACLU) and was assured that the school could not legally do anything about it. Students who responded to the Facebook event, which is how I primarily got the word out, also received a message the night before detailing their rights to wear the shirts, as laid out in Tinker V. Des Moines”
I wonder if this school will in turn allow prolife students to wear a Tshirt depicting the poor little guy shown in the photo above. It doesn’t promote drug or tobacco use and after all, it is the end result of what some of Max’s real sex education promotes. Maybe it would fall under promoting violence in school. No, that couldn’t be because it is legal to do this to humans!
Can we find out who some prolife teens are in Max’s school?
Maybe Chris Arsenault would let his sentence be used as a Tshirt slogan over the photo of the aborted child:
Max, I think you do real violence to the truth
Ashley, Have a conversation with those of us who grew up in big families and most will say it was the best thing. I love the fact I have 5 others in my life who know the good, the bad and ugly of our upbringing. I would not want it any other way. Did out parents give us EVERYTHING we wanted. Did they give us ALL the attention we needed. NO and thank God they didn’t or else we would be pretty self centered.
When it comes to large families the benefits out number the anything negitive.
Posted by: Kelsey at July 22, 2010 9:15 AM
I totally agree with this statement! I don’t care if people PREVENT a pregnancy, my problem comes when people decide to kill a child who has already been conceived. Big difference.
By the way, re: Planned Parenthood – they are the ONLY “non-profit” I’ve ever heard of that indeed makes a profit.
And Ashley H. – I went to a prenatal appointment at a local OB/GYN’s office and the ultrasound tech wasn’t going to give me a picture of the baby because “it’s just a blob of baby anyway” (her words, direct quote). My baby was fully formed and had arms and legs that he was moving around and he was doing all kinds of things in there. Hardly a “blob”, although an unborn child never *is* a “blob” to begin with. I suspect she must have been pro-abortion because NO pro-lifer would say something like that. “Blob” is a well-known pro-abortion term. Back when I was young, stupid, and pro-abortion, I believed all the NOW/NARAL/pro-abortion crap about “it’s only a blob early on, anyway…”. What a load of mule muffins that was. With my first baby, the first early ultrasound dispelled that myth, along with all my subsequent research about fetal development.
BTW, I made the ultrasound tech give me a picture anyway. My husband couldn’t be there, even though he really wanted to be, and I knew he’d want to see our BABY.
“When it comes to large families the benefits out number the anything negitive.”
Posted by: ann marie at July 22, 2010 10:33 AM
I agree with you completely.
Has anyone ever done a study on the size of the birth families of post-abortive women?
Ashley,
We’re not pushing for women to just keep pushing out babies–that is, we’re not saying “Hey women out there, even if you’re not prgnant, hurry up and push out a baby!” We’re saying if you ARE pregnant DON’T kill that baby, let the child live…if you can’t care for the little one, there’s adoption and people out there willing to help you. THAT is what we’re saying.
I’m a pro-life woman and mother. I’m not sure whether or not I’m supposed to have or want to have any more kids (I don’t know, that’s not something I can say I know the answer to at this moment). I don’t use artificial birth control, I use Natural Family Planning. I’ve used NFP for several years now. I used NFP both to conceive my son and to avoid pregnancy. If I do become pregnant, I will have that child, love that child and NOT kill that child.
No, motherhood isn’t easy. It’s the hardest BEST job I’ve ever had. Why is it the best job? Because I know I have a chance to be more than myself. To get out of my natural human selfishness and “lay down my life” for another. Whether you’re Christian or not, selfLESS love has a chance to make a real difference in the world.
Abuse can happen even if a person only has the children they want. If people don’t seek help if they need it, or if people don’t TRY to cvercome their short comings and ask for help, then how can anyone hope to be better?
Prolifers expect pregnant women not to kill their children. People in general are expected not to abuse others. Those things do happen, and that is why we must cultivate a culture of LIFE and LOVE rather than hate, fear and death. Abortion doesn’t cultivate life or love, abortion cultivates selfishness, death, murder. That doesn’t help the world at all.
Crisis Pregnancy Centers, good adoption agencies, foundations like states that have a Right to Life Fundation and other such organizations cultivate love, encouragement and life. THOSE things will help make the world a better place, even if it’s only one little part at a time.
We must continue to pray and work for a better world…one free of abortion and abuse. People aren’t perfect, which is why we must continue to try and be better and less selfish and more loving. The more we work at that, the more chance the world has of being a better place.
If you can look a starving child in the eye and tell them “sorry but the home we had open for you was taken by a newborn “which are wanted more” and feel good about yourself then I would have to ask why his life is worth less?
Biggaz, we can’t save every child, but there are many organizations working in the world to help these children. Many of them are run by (horrors!) Catholic relief organizations.
I work with children in foster families. We always hear about the horror stories, but there are many, many good foster homes and caring foster families. Often the foster families end up adopting the children, which is something we don’t hear about. There is even a foundation set up to help these kids when they age out of the system. There are many people that come out of the foster system and do well. Here’s a link to an organization that does alot for kids in foster care: http://www.fosterclub.com/
‘m sorry about your friend, but just because his adoption turned out badly, does that mean adoption is always a negative experience? Many adopted children do very well in life — for example, did you realize Steve Jobs, for example, was adopted? And mean look at “Snooki” — she was adopted as a baby from Chile and now she’s a reality show star! But seriously,your friend really needed some counseling and love, and it’s sad that he didn’t get it.
On the other hand, I’m an adoptive mom, and I would be lying if I said that everything turned out perfectly with my son. He was an SEI (substance exposed infant) and has behaviorial problems, to say the least. It hasn’t been easy. But he’s only 19 and still has a chance to turn it around. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t. But would you look my son in the eye and say “you should have never been born?”
Even though I don’t go to church I am a Christian, but I have no desire to tell people not to drink, smoke, have premarital sex, or otherwise control people’s behavior. All I say is don’t hurt anybody, and abortion hurts — not only a developing member of the human family, but many, many women who have them.
I know pro-lifers think parents should skip birth control and just keep pushing out more babies, but it doesn’t seem to benefit anyone.
We’re talking about abortion here. Use all the condoms you want: that’s none of my business. But once a child has been conceived, killing is not an acceptable solution.
Posted by: Kelsey at July 22, 2010 9:15 AM
****************************
What Kelsey said.
phyillymiss,
You have a point. Some adoptions don’t always turn out great, but it doesn’t mean ALL adoptions turn out bad. My eldest sister and older brother are both adopted. Neither of them seems sorry they became part of the family and our family has loved having them be part of the family.
My eldest nephew is adopted. He is a fine young man…a Marine and we’re so proud of him!
Best wishes to you and your son. Sorry to hear about the problems with the SEI…I hope things get better and it’s wonderful you love him in spite of it.
By the way, re: Planned Parenthood – they are the ONLY “non-profit” I’ve ever heard of that indeed makes a profit.
Posted by: army_wife at July 22, 2010 10:53 AM
Not uncommon at all. I’m on the board of a non-profit and I assure you we try very hard every year to have a surplus (which we can use to grant scholarships or raise salaries of underpaid employees).
Well, let’s see. I was one of two planned children in a middle-class household and I never felt close to my parents. I definitely am not close to my sister.
Today, all the children are wanted children, right? So all the children who are abused, adopted, in foster care, etc. were wanted before they were born. So you can’t argue that these things only happen when abortion isn’t an option. In fact, because pro-choicers are the ones that claimed child abuse and unwanted children would be a thing of the past with legal abortion, THEY are the ones who should have to answer for not adopting each of these children–after all, today every child is a wanted child. If their system didn’t solve the problem, aren’t they responsible for every child that was abandoned or abused by pro-choice parents?
Thanks, Mother In Texas. I’m not Catholic, but I’m inspired by the story of a woman named Monica, who lived many years ago. She had a wayward son who fathered an out-of-wedlock child, misbehaved, and in short, caused her a great deal of heartache. But she kept on loving him, and praying for him, and he finally turned things around. I’m sure that you’ve heard a few things about him– he’s known as St. Augustine.
Ashley wrote:
I have never once heard a pro-choicer or an abortion doctor call a fetus a “blob of tissue.” I don’t know where this accusation comes from. I think it’s just something pro-lifers make up.
Well… care to explain this little creative ditty?
If you don’t believe me beyond that, go and Google the phrase and its variants (e.g. “product of conception”, etc.). But surely you see the point? Abortion-tolerant people who wish to defend/justify their positions have a strong desire to AVOID person-sounding language when describing an unborn child (since it grates on the conscience of one who wants to allow that child to be killed at the say-so of another). The mere fact that they might not use the exact ASCII characters “blog of tissue” really isn’t to the point.
I’m also perplexed at something: many post-abortive people, on this blog alone, have described how abortionists, family, “friends”, and associates have described unborn children as “blobs of tissue”–usually in the context of coaxing the person over their resistance to abortion. Are you seriously seeking to call all of them liars (i.e. they’re just “making it up” for the sake of a blog comment)?
By the way, re: Planned Parenthood – they are the ONLY “non-profit” I’ve ever heard of that indeed makes a profit.
Posted by: army_wife at July 22, 2010 10:53 AM
Not uncommon at all. I’m on the board of a non-profit and I assure you we try very hard every year to have a surplus (which we can use to grant scholarships or raise salaries of underpaid employees).
Posted by: Hal at July 22, 2010 11:51 AM
Talk about surpluses, Planned Parenthood is swimming in money partly because they receive federal funding – and they still plead for more money from unknowing donors every chance they get as if they are on the brink of
financial ruin. Look at their real estate assets alone.
Does your non-profit receive federal funds?
Adoption is not a glorious or even a happy path. Just ask all the kids at the Dave Thomas Foundation. To be shoved from state foster home to foster home while hoping someone might give you a family when so many never do get adopted and that’s just in the USA.
Posted by: Biggz at July 21, 2010 8:48 PM
They who don’t get adopted because the state will not terminate parental rights. People would adopt them today were it not for government bureaucracy that is so indecisive and incompetent.
You’re right, hippie, in many cases there are problems with releasing a child for adoption — for example, one of the parents can’t be located in order to terminate parental rights. But it is difficult to find homes for older/disabled children and many do eventually age out of the system. They face an uphill battle, but there are resources available for these kids. However, it’s just not enough.
Ashley wrote:
My mom grew up in an Irish Catholic community where it was the norm to have 5-10 kids (her family had 6).
…and you assume this is bad, by definition? With all due respect to your anecdote: I know of many families with 8+ children whose histories are stable and loving (though imperfect, like us all), and not the horror-stories that you assume they’d have to be.
Thanks to the ban on birth control, she said women were always getting pregnant and didn’t want to be.
“Ban on birth control”? Ban on artificial contraceptives, you mean. G.K. Chesterton put that well: “Everybody has always known about birth-control, even if it took the wild and unthinkable form of self-control.”
It sounds like there was A LOT of child abuse behind closed doors.
Child abuse is always horrid; I think we agree, there. But unless you’re suggesting that large families were the direct cause of it (along with the inverse proposition: that small families will reduce or eliminate it), I don’t see why this idea would help your case.
Not in her house, although she always says her mom “had no time for us,” and I don’t think she ever felt close to either of her parents.
Same, here: unless you’re willing to suggest that the parents of a large family were neglectful, “by defintion”, and that a 2-income, 1-child family would be a comparative utopia of proper parental attention/affection, you’ve swung and missed at your main point, again. (In my own experience, I’ve found all too many self-absorbed parents who minimized their number of children in order to “keep their vibrant, fun lives from being cramped”–i.e. to keep their fundamental selfishness from being challenged.)
She and the other kids in her neighborhood were also really under-supervised and did pretty much whatever they wanted.
Ah. And you suppose this was a function of large families, which smaller families (aided by artificial contraception, rather than the selfishness-fighting self-control of NFP) would cause to dissolve, like a bad dream? You don’t know of any parents with 2 or less children who let the TV babysit, who let their children run amok, and the like?
How is that a good environment for kids?
I’d have to ask you to clarify what, exactly, you meant by “that”. Do you mean “neglectful and abusive homes”? Then of course, that’s not a good environment for kids (or anyone)… but your attempt to show that “large families = abusive, neglectful and miserable; contraceptive-induced small families = respectful, nurturing and fulfilling” needs some serious extra work; you’ve not even begun to make your case, in any solid sense.
I know pro-lifers think parents should skip birth control and just keep pushing out more babies,
Oh, come now! You can’t possibly believe the nonsense you just uttered, here! You’d be the first to object (and rightly so) to anyone who tried to caricature and tar you with such a red-herring-laden, straw-man-laden collection of balderdash in the other direction (e.g. “all pro-choicers hate children, and nothing makes them happier than to see abortions increase without number!”).
And you’re never going to take a way the birth control and create a culture where women are just beaming with joy about their 7th unplanned pregnancy, when they can barely afford to feed and clothe the first 6. It didn’t exist in the 50s, and it never will.
Ashley… with all due respect: on this particular point, you don’t know what you’re talking about. See above… but your attempt to take one painful example from the past (whose causes you cannot know with certainty) and project it on the rest of the world–“stop large families! They cause grief, agony, neglect, abuse, etc., etc.!”–is ridiculous and illogical. Saying, “I know a large family which is miserable” doesn’t prove your case, any more than my statement of “and I know an even larger family which is happy and contented” would prove the opposite. Surely you see that?
Planned families are good for kids.
That’s so utterly vague as to be meaningless. If you mean that planning and prudence are integral to healthy family life, then of course I’ll agree. But if you mean, “I want the freedom to have sex while infallibly preventing the consequence that often naturally follows from it; and the idea of denying myself sex in order to avoid those same consequences is an intolerable idea to me”, then I can only say that the idea is as selfish as it is foolish (and prone to fail, inevitably).
You know, it strikes me that today’s generation is the most selfish of any before us. Could it be that we have so few siblings?
Lauren, I think so. I think that has a lot to do with it.
To phillymiss: St. Augustine is my son’s baptism patron!! His Mother, St. Monica is my Mom and one of my sister’s patroness. yeah, I know about those two! St. Augustine is a giant in the Catholic Church–in Philosophy, too. Too cool! (I started recognizing the story when you were telling it LOL).
Ashley: Your perception of Catholicism is a misperception. I’m a Roman Catholic myself (been studying it nearly all my life and am a “Cradle Catholic”), I practice NFP, I was never told, nor is it taught that we have to have hordes of children. I know about the misconception of over 20 or more years ago. However, NFP IS out and IS taught now and has been for more than 20 years. I know about the mindsets and perceptions of 1960’s and pre-1960’s. I’ve heard enough about them to last me a lifetime. However, I also know some of those perceptions were MISperceptions of what the Catholic Church truly teaches and why, I also know those misperceptions are still being perputrated by people who don’t understand what the Catholic Church truly teaches and why. Some of them have never even read “The Catechism of The Catholic Church” (some have and don’t understand it). I wish people would learn what the Catholic Church TRULY teaches and why and then hopefull see they’re operating under misconceptions.
Ashley Said: “Of course, that’s how the fundie Catholics want it: women having hordes of kids, even to the detriment of the ones she already has. The fact that the wife has no interests or life outside the home is just a bonus. (And of course, the man gets to be the “leader of the house,” ie, treat his wife like a sex-and-housework dispensing machine.)”
LIES! I’m a Roman Catholic Christian and I take HUGE offense at this.
No, we do NOT teach that a woman should have children to the determent of the ones existing (although definition of determent is different generally from person to person. For example, at the age of 6 when my mother had my younger brother, I wanted a sister and my younger brother was obviously not a girl. I was upset at first, but I got over it–in my 6 year old eyes having a brother instead of a sister was determential to me, but in reality it really wasn’t a determent at all. And generally it’s not a determent to the other kids for their mother to have another child).
The Catholic Church encourages women to be good mothers, but does NOT say the woman can’t have a life outside the home. That’s a lie. (I have a sister who is a mom of 2 and a wife and has a job and she is a Catholic in good standing). There’s LOTS of Catholic wives/mothers who have lives outside of the home; and it hasn’t meant they weren’t good Catholics. Some of these women have been honored by the Catholic Church for one reason or another. (Kimberly Hahn is a Catholic who is a public speaker outside the home. Julie Alexander is another public speaker and her and her husband have a ministry together that’s outside the home; I had Catholic female teachers in my lifetime–they had lives outside the home. I’m a member of RWA and a local chapter, that sometimes takes me outside the home).
The Catholic Church does NOT say men are supposed to treat their wives as baby making machines. What the Catholic Church ACTUALLY teaches is that men should lay down their lives for their wives. That they should be loving, giving, and kind. That they should be selfLESS as Christ was. The same for women.
And NO, the Catholic Church does NOT (did you get that, NOT) teach couples have to have hordes of children. It does NOT teach that. (I’ve studied and asked questions on what the Church teaches in reference to children). Here’s what the Catholic Church ACTUALLY teaches:
1. Married couples should be open to life. That is, not using artificial contraception, and not having abortions when they do conceive. That each child should be loved and cared for.
2. Sexual intercourse has 2 main purposes:
A. procreative (being open to the POSSIBILITY of children)
B. unitive (the marriage vows spoken with the body–a reaffirmation of the marriage vows).
3. There are good reasons for using NFP to avoid pregnancy, and that a couple should PRAYERFULLY consider those reasons and be open to God’s grace and His plan.
Does your non-profit receive federal funds?
Posted by: Janet at July 22, 2010 1:07 PM
indirectly, through financial aid and the like.
To All,
I so appreciate all the Pro-Life opinions I have received, and I certainly admire the passion you exude while expressing yourselves. Even in the light that some of what you are saying is truly the product of hyped up misguided data and pure propaganda.
Sadly, the reality is, I don’t know of a lot of people who are willing to take in the product of incest, rape or a cracked up hooker as an adoptee into their homes. I don’t know a lot of people who’d be willing to take on a child with severe and profound disabilities or a child who is critically ill with a congenital disease as an adoptee. I am not sure a lot of people would be willing to give up a wife because they choose to chance an ectopic pregnancy. I am certainly not saying these are pleasant situations, but they are real and happen every day. Some parents are not built to cope with these situations, so these children would be left behind, and frankly there are not a lot of adoption options for these children. So where do they end up? In a social systems that is already overburdened and underfunded. Until we as a society solve some these issues first, then we must allow women to make a choice as to what is best for themselves and the unborn child.
I think it is brilliant to have the sanctity of life argument, and I agree that all life is sacred, but there is also the issue of quality of life, and what kind of quality would these children have. Let’s be real with ourselves, for the most part, these children would have a bleak outlook at best. Are there going to be success stories with some of these children, of course there are, that’s the stuff the movie-of-the-week is built on. However, ultimately, the majority of these children would not, and that is a distressing prospect to envision.
So to all the Pro-Lifer’s; keep on fighting the good fight, as I do appreciate that you at least stand up for a cause and exercise your right to speak what you feel. That’s awesome, and I wish you all well. I am going to keep championing my right to say the opposite, and let’s both exercise our right to elect officials whom will follow through with our wishes. Peace.
Ashley wrote:
You’re right, I’m never going to deny myself sex with my boyfriend/husband if I want it.
Hm. If a man were to say that about a woman, I think you’d be a bit nervous, wouldn’t you? “I want what I want, and I’m never going to deny myself my goodies?” Are you seriously telling me that you have no use for self-control at all? That it’s “passe”, and only for “Catholic fundamentalists” (whatever that might mean)?
That’s what condoms are for.
Mm-hmm. Silly me… to treat my wife as a person to be loved, rather than an object to be used to satisfy an “itch”, whenever I happen to have a craving. Self-restraint really isn’t as life-ending and repressive as you imagine it to be, Ashley.
You can continue to push the sex-phobic
Ashley, you’re talking blithering nonsense, here. You might as well say that people who obey red traffic lights are afraid of cars…
(and wildly unpopular)
Ah. Popularity = right, to you? No other factors are needed? Surely you don’t mean that?
notion that people have to skip sex if they don’t want to have a baby, but I’m not going to.
Ashley… try to listen, here. If you can’t say “no” to sex, then your “yes” means nothing. Good grief… you really don’t mind being completely irresponsible, and using your boyfriend just to satisfy your own “kicks”? What’s to stop you–or him–from running off after the next “potential sex partner” who seems more attractive? What on earth are you planning to do when your looks, and his looks, start to go south (as age will inevitably cause)? If you train yourself for a life of utter selfishness in this regard, it’ll be agonizingly hard to break that habit when you get older… and, if you have any dreams of eventual motherhood, the life of self-sacrifice needed for parenthood simply won’t be accessible for you when you want it! Your old habits will have smothered it rather efficiently.
I agree it’s different once you actually conceive, but I see nothing wrong with avoiding pregnancy through “artificial” means.
We both agree that, after a child comes into the world, then things are different; well and good. But I claim that “using someone as a sex toy to satisfy your selfish kicks”–while certainly different from “using someone as a sex toy to satisfy your selfish kicks, and then murdering a baby”–is still wrong.
And these mothers were having way more children than they wanted or could take care of. This was in the days before people practiced NFP.
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that everything in your statement is true. So… now that NFP is available, why would anyone choose the “use condoms and use your sex partner” approach, anymore? If your whole point was that “unwanted large families = bad, miserable, abusive” (and you’ve misdiagnosed the cause, there), then with the advent of NFP, doesn’t your main point collapse?
It was just like the orthodox Catholics want it, since even today they insist you need a “compelling reason” to practice NFP. (In other words, unless you’re gravely ill or bankrupt, start pushing out babies ASAP.)
I don’t know if you really believe this, or whether you’re throwing out any and all statements that you think will inflame your opponent, Ashley… but you’re being silly, here. You seem to think that NFP’s only purpose is to “be a condom substitute”; may I respectfully ask you to *learn* what NFP *actually* is, before you comment further on it? The spacing of births is only the tip of the iceberg, re: NFP.
My mom is the 4th of 6th.
Hm. One of my good friends is the 7th (I think) of 14… and there’s no trauma, there. (Lots of political liberalism, unfortunately, but no trauma.)
Her parents used no birth control because the Church said they’d go to hell–you know, the hardcore Catholic position.
“Hard-core”, as opposed to what? It’s either Catholic teaching, or it isn’t, Ashley.
Of course, that’s how the fundie Catholics want it: women having hordes of kids, even to the detriment of the ones she already has.
(*sigh*) Spoken as one whose only knowledge of Catholicism (and NFP) comes from caricatures.
The fact that the wife has no interests or life outside the home is just a bonus.
Don’t forget “not allowing them to participate at ‘swinger’ parties”…
(And of course, the man gets to be the “leader of the house,” ie, treat his wife like a sex-and-housework dispensing machine.)
Ashley, the Catechism of the Catholic Church is available online–google it. If you learn nothing else here, learn that “using a person” is condemned by the Church as a violation of their God-given dignity. That’s why artificial contraception is so poisonous; it leads you to use your “partner” as a mere thing to dispense “sexual treats” whenever you please. How is that better than your (caricature) idea of “using women as baby- and laundry-machines”?
Anyway, back to my point: I don’t mind at all that I was a “choice.” I’m glad my parents wanted to have me, rather than knowing they didn’t want me but were forced to after an accidental pregnancy.
Why?
I don’t believe in *aborting* accidental pregnancies,
Why not?
but the fact that I could have been doesn’t bother me. (No “I could have been aborted and I’m upset about it!” sentiment here.)
I’m afraid (though your reaction is unusual) that doesn’t prove much; I know of people who’ve inflicted unjust suffering on others, and it really doesn’t bother them at all. That really doesn’t make “inflicting unjust suffering” okay, does it?
“Sadly, the reality is, I don’t know of a lot of people who are willing to take in the product of incest, rape or a cracked up hooker as an adoptee into their homes. I don’t know a lot of people who’d be willing to take on a child with severe and profound disabilities or a child who is critically ill with a congenital disease as an adoptee.”
Actually there are people waiting to adopt just these children. Have you heard of Reece’s Rainbow? It’s an adoption agency for kids with Down Syndrome. Families are there.
” I am not sure a lot of people would be willing to give up a wife because they choose to chance an ectopic pregnancy. ”
No one is suggesting such a thing. Pro-lifers believe that remmoval of an ectopic pregnancy is consistent with our belief that the most life possible should be perserved. It is senseless to allow both to die.
:) I’m really growing to love Texas moms, more and more; they have more sense in a little finger than most of us have in our whole carcasses! Well done!
Ashley, the Catholic Church has never ever demanded women produce “hordes of children”. Nor are the men fine with them having no lives. You ain’t real bright are ya? The Bible calls for men to be leaders in the home but they are NOT to demand slavery out of their wives. The Leadership calls for him to be model for his wife and kids in the Faith. I know of no Catholic household where the man is a slave driver as you imply. I’m Eastern Orthodox,my mother is Catholic and I was raised in both Churches. I take your comments as a sign of your lack of education and character. Before you make comments like that I suggest you think real hard on who you might irritate before you spew forth inane grunts of your obvious discontent for people of the Roman Catholic Faith. Not every Catholic family can afford the Genghis Khan horde of children but those that can enjoy them. As Mother in Texas stated, the Church does not ask that the woman become a baby making machine. So drop the burning cross and white sheets and focus on the topic of the blog. The Pro-Life Movement and stop acting like a moron speaking on a Faith you obviously know nothing about.
Ashley, NFP isn’t difficult, and isn’t all that restrictive. You typically only abstain for about 5 days/month. Also, it doesn’t mean you can’t be intimate with your spouse, just no intercourse. This isn’t exactly some Herculean feat.
Posted by: lauren at July 22, 2010 3:15 PM
My thoughts exactly.
Lauren thank you for the info about Reece’s Rainbow. And thank you, MarkB for your response.
Mother In Texas, I went to Catholic high school, where I was taught by the Daughters of the Heart of Mary. I didn’t appreciate it then, but I received a very good education and some values to boot. I don’t agree with some of the teachings of the Catholic church, (like I mentioned before, I am not too fond of organized religion in general) but they do quite a bit to help the poor and marginalized.
Same with the LDS. Did you know that they had a huge mission to Haiti after the earthquake?
Lauren,
Yes, I agree, there are some, but the key words in that statement are “not a lot.” I so applaud the efforts of those who are willing to take on these cases, but sadly, there are too few of them to serve the masses. Thus leaving a great number of these people under-serviced.
And yes, people are suggesting that ectopic pregnancies must be chanced. There are several posting that clearly state every conception must be protected, that abortion can not exist in any form or fashion. We can’t have it both ways; we can’t keep abortion for only “those cases” which someone deems it acceptable. Who becomes the one doing the deeming, who gets to draw the line, or who gets to decide? What do we do with people who lie about the nature of their pregnancy or whether it is ectopic or not. We then assume that all doctors are ethical, not a chance of that being absolutely true.
Mark, there are currently more people waiting to adopt children with DS than children with DS needing to be adopted.
The waiting parents aren’t the issue.
As for ectopic pregnancies, as someone mentioned before, abortionists (that is, those who perform abortion in free standing clinics) do not treat ectopic pregnancies. Ectopic pregnancies are generally treated via emergency surgery or medicine given in the emergency department. It would be very difficult to fake such a situation.
The line can be very clearly drawn. If a pregnancy will, to the best of a doctor’s estimation, result in the deat of the mother prior to the time when the child is viable, removing the child should be allowed.
MarkB wrote:
Sadly, the reality is, I don’t know of a lot of people who are willing to take in the product of incest, rape or a cracked up hooker as an adoptee into their homes.
Hold on, here. Can I stop you, for a moment?
You appeal to the rarity of taking in children like that; and I think you mean that such rarity is a *bad* thing, right? I agree (though I assert that you’ve woefully overestimated the lack of people willing to do that–see Lauren’s excellent post, above).
Two points, here:
1) I think, if you reflect, that you’ll see how the rarity of something really has no bearing on whether it’s right or wrong. Does the high percentage of people willing to “torture someone to death, under orders” (see http://news.softpedia.com/news/Shock-as-Reality-Show-Invites-Contestants-to-Kill-137831.shtml) mean that it’s somehow more permissible? Even if we had only one out of 1000 people refuse to torture and kill an innocent, that wouldn’t be any good argument for “liberalizing laws to allow the freedom to choose torture”, would it?
2) Suppose your guess is correct (and I assert that it isn’t, by the way), and the number of people who’d take in such children is minimal. Does it logically follow that such children must be put to death? That’s what you’re saying, here; did you really mean to claim that?
More on that in a moment…
Until we as a society solve some these issues first, then we must allow women to make a choice as to what is best for themselves and the unborn child.
You’re couching your position in very gentle, soothing tones, friend… but you mean, when translated: “it’s better to kill these children than to let them live like that.” Are you willing to extend your position to the already-born? To push this cynical example to its end: why not wait a bit, and *see* whether these children actually turn out to be miserable and suffering horribly, and *then* kill them–once you have all the facts you need (instead of guesswork)?
Do you see? You’re (perhaps unconsciously) using the “luxury” of the fact that the unborn child is “out of sight, out of mind”, to assuage your conscience about killing them–and in barbaric ways (while covering them in a fantasy-image of “quietly rectifying an unplanned pregnancy, in a smoothly- and professionally-run way”). It’s easier to let “professionals” in (what some imagine to be) clean, white coats “handle the unpleasant details”, while we unctuously nod approval for the “freedom to go ahead with this awkward and unfortunate necessity”.
Please think about what you’re saying, sir!
I think it is brilliant to have the sanctity of life argument, and I agree that all life is sacred, but there is also the issue of quality of life, and what kind of quality would these children have.
There is; that’s true. What of it? And how would you determine it? Chances are good that your income exceeds mine; does that make your “quality of life” higher than mine? Chances are good that you don’t suffer from 50+ food allergies (including wheat, dairy, and most vegetables); does that make my “quality of life” worse than yours? You and I are in no position to make such judgments, especially if such a judgment is poised to strike someone dead!
Let’s be real with ourselves, for the most part, these children would have a bleak outlook at best.
“So let’s kill them.” At least, can we be honest about what you propose, here?
So to all the Pro-Lifer’s; keep on fighting the good fight, as I do appreciate that you at least stand up for a cause and exercise your right to speak what you feel. That’s awesome, and I wish you all well.
(*sigh*)
That sounds very handsome… and I commend you on your civility… and the comment has but one glaring flaw: it isn’t at all useful for anything. If we don’t base our positions on TRUTH (i.e. what’s actually true, rather than what anyone feels, opines, etc.), then they are useless. If our position is false, then you do us a disservice by smilingly letting us march on our merry way… just as you’d do a disservice to your son or daughter if he/she were to start drinking poison, and you smilingly looked on without interfering. Do you care about us, or don’t you?
I am going to keep championing my right to say the opposite, and let’s both exercise our right to elect officials whom will follow through with our wishes.
I’m afraid that simply won’t do. If you’re right, then we’re all wrong. If we’re right, then your position is wrong, and you need to change it. Wishful thinking and blithe ignorance won’t serve either of us well, here. We need to do the hard, bruising work of finding truth… and not simply pass off that hard job to others while we skip down our own primrose paths, yes?
Peace.
“The greatest destroyer of peace is abortion… because if a mother can kill her own child, what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me? There is nothing between.” -Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta
Great points, Paladin.
:) Likewise, Lauren!
Paladin,
“Rare” or not, that’s your opinion, these societal issues still exist. Yet neither side has solutions to them. We hope the few people who are helping these children do a good job, and we turn our head away from those that we don’t see or know about.
Another reality is if we were to outlaw abortion, for a woman who really wants one, she’ll still get one. Either in back alley clinics, do it themselves or some other nasty form, but they will still occur. Again, this is reality, history has proven this, and no matter how “rare” you think these things are, they do occur.
Turn your head if you want, make it illegal, hopefully it won’t happen anymore. Maybe all these children will find homes, help and even love. Right..Maybe…brilliant strategy.
And yes, people are suggesting that ectopic pregnancies must be chanced. There are several posting that clearly state every conception must be protected, that abortion can not exist in any form or fashion.
————————————–
Except that ectopic pregnancy removals are NOT abortion. They are lifesaving treatment for a pregnancy that cannot, medically, continue in this place.
If you actually READ the comments on this blog, you would find that the medical personnel here and almost all of those posting hold this to be true and are VERY insistent that those who claim to be for “abortion” because of ectopics learn the difference.
I worked at a Catholic hospital in L&D. Never once was an ectopic treated or referred to as if it were an abortion and there was never any hesitancy on the part of the staff to treat them quickly and appropriately. In fact, during my time there, two different STAFF MEMBERS had ectopics treated in our own hospital.
This is a red herring issue which has NOTHING to do with your support of abortion…. which as Paladin and Lauren have clearly pointed out, is eugenist in nature.
Of course, that’s how the fundie Catholics want it: women having hordes of kids, even to the detriment of the ones she already has. The fact that the wife has no interests or life outside the home is just a bonus.(And of course, the man gets to be the “leader of the house,” ie, treat his wife like a sex-and-housework dispensing machine.)
=================================
Ashley, I have seven children and hope to have more. My health is excellent and I certainly DO have a life, as a registered nurse with numerous certifications and a career I love… and wonderful kids I adore and spend time with daily both in a group and individually.
Or is “hordes” somewhat above the number seven?
And honestly, the women with “hordes” of children out there are pretty few and far between. The Duggars aren’t Catholic, and neither are many large families.
I have a patient who had 16 children. She has 50 grandchildren and 51 great-grandchildren with more on the way. She is in her 80s, in quite good health (she was just in patient for a few days) and her offspring form the backbone of the small community I live and work in. Good people, every last one of them. When she was ill, each of her children pitched in to care for her home and gardens and her grandchildren and great grandchildren took turns visiting. It is the perfect example of a life WELL worth living and one I hope to emulate!
And my husband is a SAHD… does that mean I get to treat him as a sex and housework dispensing machine? (Oh, wait, he loves it when I treat him as a sex dispensing machine…. the housework, eh, we’ll get around to it at some point… back to that sex thing….)
“Another reality is if we were to outlaw abortion, for a woman who really wants one, she’ll still get one. Either in back alley clinics, do it themselves or some other nasty form, but they will still occur.”
Yes, just as murders still occur despite laws forbidding them. Obviously there are always people willing to break a law. That doesn’t mean you don’t make the law to begin with. Abortion skyrocketed upon legalization, and I’m willing to wager would drop dramatically if it becomes illegal.
Obviously we need to have programs in place for women in crisis pregnancies. Right now CPC’s do a great job, but they should be expanded.
Believe it or not, prolifers already offer help to women facing crisis pregnancies. I was told by a local maternity home (yes, they still exist, and they’re not just for women who will place their child for adoption!) that they would take any woman who I counseled at a clinic who wished to keep her baby. This home offered an accredited highschool, and housing and food for up to 2 years after the child was born. These types of programs should be expanded as well, but are often derided by those who stand to profit from abortion.
MarkB, your words show that you think the solution to social problems is murdering the most innocent members of society.
Our solutions may not be perfect, but at least we’re willing to step up and try. Most of us would love to adopt if the costs and restrictions were not so onerous. My family just moved from one state to another and now has to begin the entire process of qualifying to do medical fost-adopts all over again. (I’m a pediatric certified RN, hubs is an EMT currently pulling SAHD duty). As has been shown, entire organizations exist just to help these children find forever homes.
What is just sitting and wishing about it? Where is the maybe? You portray us as if we are doing nothing about these issues. The truth is, you and those like you feel like you don’t HAVE to do anything about these issues, I mean, really, you gave those poor children a chance to be murdered! What more should you have to do?
And you’re never going to take a way the birth control and create a culture where women are just beaming with joy about their 7th unplanned pregnancy, when they can barely afford to feed and clothe the first 6. It didn’t exist in the 50s, and it never will.
—————————————
Really? Wow, you sure miss out on some great message boards. I know hundreds of women, great friends, who not only HAVE more than 5 or 6 kids (really… 5 or 6 equals hordes? Wow) but hope to have more. I have friends who have 15, 16, 17 kids and would be open to more.
And our kids don’t run wild and our houses aren’t neglected and our health doesn’t suffer and our children don’t feel unwanted. You see, those things are caused by a lack of parenting, which can happen with 1 child or with many…. and most families who have many have made parenting a priority.
Believe it or not, prolifers already offer help to women facing crisis pregnancies. I was told by a local maternity home (yes, they still exist, and they’re not just for women who will place their child for adoption!) that they would take any woman who I counseled at a clinic who wished to keep her baby. This home offered an accredited highschool, and housing and food for up to 2 years after the child was born. These types of programs should be expanded as well, but are often derided by those who stand to profit from abortion.
———————————————–
Lauren, my cousin Kathy works in just such a home in AL helping young women have healthy pregnancies, getting them through their education (most come to her with the equivalent of a 4th grade education and she has to work very hard with them to bring them up to the point where they can get their GEDs).
Kathy is the oldest girl of my aunt and uncle…. second oldest of 11 children in all. (Oh, gasp, heavens, horrors) all 11 of whom are gainfully employed and have families of their own. They are all VERY close and are a real inspiration.
What Max, and other males interested in engaging in ‘safe-sex’, or quite frankly any sex, is that abortion offers them a ‘get out of jail free card’. No birth = no obligations. The pro-aborts feed on this to further their evil ends.
Thanks for telling it like it is Jeff. You’re exactly right and it’s nice to hear a man state the truth about proabort boys.
Max is a wam, bam, thank ya mam sorta boy. Use’em and loose ’em. Spill it and kill it.
Young Ladies, stand up to the irresponsible boys like Max. They don’t have your best interest at heart.
Erika loves Prochoice boys!!(from the other post)
This will be a longish post, so be forewarned. …
Perhaps the first thing to comment on is Jill’s use of the word ‘stupid’ It is an improper sentiment that reflects that this word was an offensive word to Jill. It no longer holds such a connotation. ‘Jerk’ or “Abortion is NOT COOL!”, may perhaps be more in-tune with Max.
MarkB, brought-up that most pro-life argumentation was only religious in nature. True and false. The ‘science’ tells us that a pre-born fetus is a pre-born living/growing human being and as such has inalienable rights …. according to the US constitution – the RIGHT TO LIFE. [Upon death all rights cease, even the so-called ‘right to choose’. Selecting death for another is a form of theft … stealing a future of possibilities; silencing another’s choices. THIS IS SCIENCE (more later) What science CANNOT GIVE is the value that this developing material has. While it is true that humans do express an innate sense of awe (even agnostics/atheists). It would be really difficult to imagine that such awe convicted anyone much beyond ecology. A person of faith is smitten by the awe-filled God and His universe (kids yet-to-be-born too).
So here are a few argument’s you’ve likely never heard before:
#1 – A few decades ago, a New Zealand Ob/Gyn, Patrick Dunn decided to plot the mood swings of women during pregnancy. What he found was that there was enough symmetry-of-experience to form a graph. The 1st DEPRESSION was a rather sharp fall lasting from wk8 – @wk12. [The low-point was wk10, where he noted that 80% of abortions occur.] The 2nd DEPRESSION begins at the start o the third trimester and slowly worsens until birth. Then there is a sharp-rising glitch to euphoria. {IMO this happens as the result of natural endorphin release (which is more powerful than morphine). So what does this say …. abortion is the result, not the cause of depression. A medical ‘rule’ is to take-no-action if depression is a symptom. Get rid if the depression FIRST … THEN DO SURGERY ETC. Right now we stupidly believe that a surgery ‘cures’ a depression. (see below)
A 3rd DEPRESSION swiftly follows birth and starts right where the third trimester one left off. [It is IMO the famous postpartum depression.] It rapidly deepens (often to suicide).
After more biochemistry studies, I found what MAY BE the cause of this DEPRESSION-PHENOMENON. {Zinc and Copper in Medicine’ eds Karcioglu & Sarper @1983} The symmetry with the extra-ordinarily high use of zinc in the developing human fetus is uncanny. For instance, between wks 5 & 6 the optic nerve (highly zinc dependent is formed. In preparation for birth all organs and their systems are getting final adjustments – like insulin production (zinc dependent pancreas) only begins the day before birth. Colostrum (first milk) is noted for its very high zinc portion. This reflects the start of the immune system and the start of the pulmonary and digestive tracks.
Of note, in this discussion is a 4th PERIOD in human development of high zinc usage – puberty. Both males and females are affected …. growth, zits, spermatozoa, etc are all highly zinc dependent. Girls have PMS and boys are often seeking criminal activity … become alcohol addicted.
The mossy fiber layers of our brain (coordinates muscle movement with our emotions) is highly zinc dependent and probably why we have depression as a major clinical sign of zinc deficit.
#2 – has to do with the limitations of scientific ‘reasoning’ as opposed to ‘human reasoning’. This was best illustrated by http://www.drjilltaylor.com . Dr. Jill had a stroke that paralyzed one side of her brain. It contains her ‘reasoning center’. It was revealing to her, as neuro-anatomist at Harvard just how left-brain dominant, she had become. Too bad, but fixable!
The reason that this is an argument is that too often (usually males) have an uppity flare to their ‘scientific reasoning’. I’d much prefer ‘human reasoning’ – thank you.
BTW we have all sorts of psychological residues (like fear and anger) from the trauma most of us experienced at our birth. Babies/newborns CAN smile. [I’ve seen it! Mike Douglas’ audience spontaneously cheered.] A recording of a birth by Dr. Leboyer (France), author of ‘Birth Without Violence’. Enough for now & something to ponder!
Hey everyone!
First off I’d just like to thank Jill who let me know she published this via-twitter, I’m always glad to hear others opinions on my work. It’s obvious that quite a few of you do not agree with my beliefs, and I’m ok with that. If you do your research on me then you will find I’ve had open discussions with both pro-choice and anti-choice organizations. I even went on the American Life League’s “Rock for Life” webcast to talk about an event I’d organized. I’m not going to try and change your views, and I can tell you right now you won’t change my views either.
Though I do agree with you (specifically Gerard Nadal) that 500 youth and advisers aren’t a ton of people compared to the March for Life, there is one major difference. These 500 people did not just protest, they actually went to sessions and learned new tactics and information to continue with our movement. We are the next generation of youth and we’re not afraid to stand up for what we believe in.
To answer Carla’s question (why am I involved): Reproductive rights are human rights and many of the youth around me seem not to care, they’re not taking a side on the issue. I’ve tried to bring this into the eyes of America’s youth, and so far I’d say I’ve been pretty successful.
Ninek: I just checked and you’re right, the last Planned Parenthood annual report was published a few years ago. I’m not sure why another one has not been updated, but I promise you as soon as I am done writing this I will send an email and voice your concerns.
Hippie: Neither of my parents work or are affiliated with Planned Parenthood in any way (besides donations)
Marysia: Though I do agree that Jill could probably find a way to use her time and web space better then calling me dumb, it’s ok. I accept that others have different views then I and have gotten just as much, if not more, positive feedback on this article than negative.
Sydney M: Yaz does have a lawsuit against it, but the dangers of this one specific type of birth control were most likely not known when you were prescribed it. Also, please don’t compare all pro-choice people to one specific person.
Jill Stanek: I’m not a fan of being compared to a Nazi; my father’s family is Jewish and many died throughout Hitler’s reign. Switching up the title was probably a good idea, I think it reflects better on you this way (though I noticed I’m still called one of the “Dumbest ppl on the planet” on Twitter). Either way, as I said above, I can guarantee that I will not change my mind.
Praxedes: I hope you enjoyed my other article; it really was a great event. I believe such shirts would be deemed disruptive to the education of other students due to the graphic picture, thus those students would be asked to remove them.
Though I wish I had the time to answer every comment, I don’t. Hopefully this will suffice for now.
Thanks for bringing your thoughts to my attention Jill and everyone else!
-Max Kamin-Cross
it should be your choice, whether or not you want to f*** your life up, i think there should be an age cap though, women upto ages 22 can have abortions, since theyre out of college and have somewhere to go in life, they have the credentials for going out in the world when their child gets old enough.
[Edited by mod – profanity]
“I believe such shirts would be deemed disruptive to the education of other students due to the graphic picture, thus those students would be asked to remove them.”
Welcome to our discussions, Max. Nice to have you join us.
Graphic – giving a clear and effective picture; vivid
Do you believe that if I wanted to wear a Tshirt to school showing a graphic picture of lets say earthquake devastation or a flooded street or a polluted lake or a starving animal/child, I would be asked to remove it? Really? Would these graphic pictures be considered disruptive?
Please explain why a picture of an aborted human would be considered more disruptive than other graphic Tshirts?
Stop by again soon. Peace.
HI Matt. Why should abortion not be allowed after age 22? Is it wrong then? If so, what makes it wrong?
Personally, i dont think america should worry about abortion, what it really should worry about is its president.
But its not wrong.
I can say securely in my pro-choice position that trimesters should not be used as the intervals of biological development associated with a woman’s right to abort. Biologically accurate phases of pregnancy in which an abortion is to be permitted would quell the remarks of pro-lifers on a child having fingernails at x days or its heart beating at x weeks. While pro-lifers disagree with a woman’s choice to procure an abortion, if the abortion were conducted at a time when the child had yet to form the yolk sac, the cries of “killing a child” would be little more than hysterics.
Reproductive rights are not human rights as reproductive rights are proabort speak for ABORTION! *gasp*
Abortion ends the life of an innocent human preborn child.
And Max wants to convince the youth of America to get on board and kill the child they conceive? The youth of America aren’t buying it, Max.
Max,
This is my abortion story.
http://outcrywisconsin.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-story-at-faith-community-church.html
I can say securely in my pro-choice position that trimesters should not be used as the intervals of biological development associated with a woman’s right to abort. Biologically accurate phases of pregnancy in which an abortion is to be permitted would quell the remarks of pro-lifers on a child having fingernails at x days or its heart beating at x weeks. While pro-lifers disagree with a woman’s choice to procure an abortion, if the abortion were conducted at a time when the child had yet to form the yolk sac, the cries of “killing a child” would be little more than hysterics.
By the time a woman even knows she is pregnant the child has a heartbeat, John. All organ systems are in place by week 8.
So from week to week there is a better time to kill in your humble opinion? Just to shut us up?
Nothing will quell my remarks about abortion. Thanks.
Trimesters are used to mark the growth periods in a child’s life as she grows in her mother’s womb. It’s called pregnancy.
What a great kid! What the rest of you fail to realize is that “pro choice” doesn’t mean “pro-abortion.” Gosh – you folks really don’t seem to have a clue. Keep up the good work Max! We need more teenagers like you. I am sorry that misinformed folks like Jill have to pick on young folks like you. On sites like this you probably won’t get much support, but please realize Max there are thousands of us out there to support you.
John… did you just read about the yolk sac somewhere and decide to throw that in so that we’d think you had a CLUE what you were talking about?
The yolk sac is actually used in early pregnancy for blood cell production because there are no bones yet and no bone marrow. What that has to do with the humanity of the unborn is beyond me.
The heart starts beating around the 21st day of life. That is before most women have even confirmed that they are pregnant. Abortion clinics do not perform surgical abortions before week 6 because the child is too small and there is a chance parts of the baby can be left behind and cause an infection. By week 6 the child is completely formed…face, eyes, nose, mouth, hands with fingers, feet with toes, beating heart etc…the whole package.
But even if you kill a child with a medical abortion in the first weeks of life before the child is completely formed you have still destroyed a fellow human being. Our humanity comes from the fact that we are members of the human race not from having feet, or hands or fingernails. If all my fingernails were ripped out tomorrow I would still be a human person. Our parts are not what make us people.
Bob,
Sorry. Pro-choice means you have no problem with a woman choosing abortion OR NOT choosing abortion. There’s no such thing as being abortion neutral. If you’re not with us you’re against us.
Jill Stanek is one of the top prolife bloggers on the web!! You are misinformed, Bob.
It is not “picking on” when someone is out there stating their beliefs and are challenged on those beliefs by others.
I have yet to hear from Max why abortion is the best choice for women. How abortion helps women. How abortion heals women.
Prochoice is only about one choice. Abortion.
Hey Ashley. Sorry to hear about all that. That has to be tough for you to try and sort out your beliefs while your mom has such strong and vocal beliefs. It especially seems difficult to try and convince yourself that you’re really looking at the evidence objectivley because someone you care so much about and love so much is so strongly persuaded in one direction.
I’m not sure what the best thing to do in your situation would be. For me, I always try and discuss things with people on an intellectual level, as opposed to an emotional level. Unfortunately, that is not always what people need, and it seems like in your case, you may need to respond in an emotional manner. Of course, I am not saying that your mother is not intellectual, but just taht from what you told us, it seems like she has formed her opinions based on the emotions and feelings.
So just to wind up these few time-wasting-of-yours paragraphs, I’m not sure what you can do. If you need any help on the argumentation front, I am very glad to help, but otherwise I will offer you my prayers. God love you.
Hi Ashley,
I believe most of the chaos and dysfunction in your family is due to the alcoholism and had nothing to do with being Catholic or to the number of children in the family. The effects of alcoholism is felt for generations.
I think Janet brought up the issue here at one point about whether we are doing enough to teach our children about how alcohol is related to unplanned pregnancies.
Read everything you can about alcoholic families and co-dependency issues. I think it might help you understand your mom and other family members better. You will also probably find out a lot about yourself.
Perhaps John would like to explain how he and anyone else morphed from being a non-human (pre-yolk sak) to magically transform into a human (post yolk sak).
Here is the reality: Human life begets human life. It is a continuity. By the way, “hysterics” is a very condescending term, but at least it is less crude than many other things we pro-lifers are called.
Ashley, I would suggest that your mother’s chaotic childhood has less to do with her parents’ Catholicism or large family (which I dispute 6 is that large but okay)… and more to do with her father’s death, her mother having to get a job after already planning on being a SAHM in a world that wasn’t really prepared to support working moms, much less widowed working moms, her grief at losing her father and her frustration at legitimate issues. She has just scapegoated the Catholic church and family size as the reasons for them. There are plenty of kids from the same or earlier time periods that had chaotic upbringings with only one or two children in the family due to the types of influences you mention, which are outside the control of either the participants or the church.
I would say that you need to love your mom but not necessarily accept at face value her obviously hurt psyche and its assessment of the root blame.
For example, my mother is the younger of two girls. My grandparents were Catholic. I have no idea why they never had more children, although fertility in my family overall is very low. Even I struggle with frequent miscarriage. My grandfather was a drunk. My grandmother was forced to work not only due to his inability to keep a paycheck after stopping by the local bar but also due to WWII. My mother is VERY resentful of that. But in her case, the local parish priest was her confidante and helped her through everything. Although she is no longer Catholic, she recognizes that there is great good there.
Hmmm….so Matt why are you pro-abortion, er, pro-“choice”? To help women???? So when a woman who HAS had an abortion (you have never had one and can’t have one so you will never experience the truth of what you are arguing the way Carla has) you mock her, curse her etc..? This shows your compassion for women….how?
More like you are pro-abortion because you are a jerk who views women not as human beings but as sexual meat to be used for your lusts and then if women conceive you can dump them at the clinic and be absolved of all responisiblitliy. If abortion wasn’t legal you really couldn’t do that anymore, huh?
A question… how many kids does your mom think is “too many” and on what does she base that?
Max, please do not speak in euphemisms. “Reproductive rights”? Don’t you mean, “you should be allowed to kill your baby if you don’t want it?” and aren’t “reproductive rights” really “non-reproductive rights”? In fact, the only places that need “reproductive rights” are the places where women are forced into abortions (such as China), as they are being denied the right to reproduce?
Bob, in what way is Jill, an RN like myself, misinformed? In what way are the scientists on this site, like Dr. Nadal, misinformed? What precisely is it that we are misinformed about? Please point out specifics. I doubt that you can.
Bob,
Jill Stanek misinformed as to what pro-choice means???
REALLY????
What was the basis for your statement? Doesn’t being pro-choice mean that one has no problem with women choosing to kill their babies? Hasn’t ‘pro-choice’ resulted in the personal choices that have led to over 52 million abortions in the US since Roe v Wade?
Yes Bob, the only conclusion I can reach after your statement is that you are either utterly delusional or just another in a long string of malevolent liars who tell our youth that truth-tellers such as Jill are misinformed, and applaud the further slaughter of innocents. I tend toward the latter consideration of you.
Just curious, but did some woman’s choice get you off the paternity hook? Is that why you are cheering on this young man?
Great stuff Bob. Encourage this young man to consider women as mere playthings by reinforcing the lethal option that allows him a protracted state of adolescence, just like yours.
Ashley: My mom is the fourth of six kids from a Catholic family, too. Her parents weren’t perfect – my grandma wasn’t exactly the warm, maternal kind – but she had a generally good childhood. So no, being the fourth of sixth kids in a Catholic family doesn’t mean automatic misery. :)
If your mom thinks that any child conceived in less than ideal circumstances should be aborted, she probably thinks SHE should have been aborted. That’s a sad and tragic thing to think. I’m not sure how you should respond, but I’m glad you feel able to talk about it here.
“On sites like this you probably won’t get much support, but please realize Max there are thousands of us out there to support you.”
Posted by: Bob at July 22, 2010 8:55 PM
Please realize Bob that that there are thousands of people who would support Max if he decided to trade child porn as well. Ugh. (I would like to buy five of Ashley’s deleated words for this spot please).
I’m curious to whether you’ve pressured and/or paid for an abortion(s) or whether you make money off abortions. Because you sure the heck don’t care about the well-being of women.
(I would like to buy five of Ashley’s deleated words for this spot please).
*************
LOL!!
Hey Ashley,
My heart really goes out to you and your Mom. Your Mom is really hurting. Those words of anger and disgust toward children show she has deep emotional wounds and scars from her own childhood. Emotional wounds are much like physical wounds. Unless she gets help, she won’t get better but will in all likelihood become increasingly bitter and more angry over time.
She needs a good counselor. She probably doesn’t believe she needs one and might be reluctant to go. That would be a tragic shame because no one should go through life suffering miserably like that.
She should enjoy her life.
If money’s tight, depending on where you live, I might be able to refer you to a counselor that would offer to see your mother the first couple of sessions at no charge. If your mother is as angry as you make her sound, just a couple of sessions could make a big difference.
Email me at edhull323@gmail.com if I can be of help.
‘Every child a wanted child.’
In pp’s lexicon ‘wanted’ is a code word for white, affluent, and not more that one per family.
That is why pp locates it’s killing centers in close proximity to poor, unedcuated and underemployed ethnic minorities.
You know the children NOT ‘wanted’.
“Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”
Ruth Bader Ginsburg
New York Times online magazine, published Sunday, July 7, 2009
Ashley,
I’m sorry your mom’s like that and I’m sorry she’s influenced you in your own though process and mindset in that way.
I’m one of 8 children. I grew up without birth control in the house and my parents spoke out against it from the moment I could know anything about it.
I’ve never used artificial birth control. But my son is much loved and we care about him deeply. He’s happy, healthy, with a goofy sense of humor and incredible imagination (that leaves me just smiling whenever I hear him coming up with a game or make believe). He’s affectionate and compassionte. He’s not perfect, but he’s sweet.
I know plenty of people who don’t use artificial birth control and have small and large families and the people are happy, healthy and content–a lot of the times the kids are very well rounded and incredibly smart to boot.
Anytime my mom sees little ones, she smiles. Babies adore my father and he adores them (they’re fabulous grandparents).
This is the other side of the coin, the side your mother obviously needed and didn’t have and I’m sorry. God bless her and you.
Ashely, I find it sad that your mother would like at my happy, healthy brood of 7 with anger and derision. I would think by now that you know me and my family enough that it would make you a little sad, too….
I’ve just tucked my youngest into his crib after some one on one cuddle time. The little girls went up to bed at 8 after story time. Jon went to bed at 9. It’s still summer, so my two biggest are doing some research on projects they are doing and I’m sitting nearby offering encouragement and advice. Hugs and kisses abound. They get lots of attention from me and from dad…
Please continue to be open to the fact that what is truth to your mother is not necessarily actual truth, it is a hurting soul looking to blame anyone, anything, for the pain she is suffering. I will pray for your mother and her obvious hurt.
MarkB I bet a 1000 to one The Founding Fathers Meant Something Entirely When They Put Separation Of Church & State On The Paper. Liberals Have Twisted That To Suit Their Agendas
Chris, the Founding Fathers did not put “separation of church and state” on any official paper. Those words are only from one Founding Father, Jefferson, in a letter to a church in which he was assuring the church that this separation would give them freedom TO worship without the government telling them what they could and could not teach. The liberals have enshrined that above the actual founding documents of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and turned it on its head. Now we have churches and Christian organizations being told they have to hire and employ people who blatantly go against their religious beliefs and that they aren’t allowed to speak out in the public sphere… it’s pathetic.
Ashley,
I’m Catholic, as is my family. My dad is the youngest of 14. There were supposed to be more, but there were miscarriages. My grandmother always said that happened because God needed another angel in Heaven.
Both of my grandparents worked. My grandfather was a mail-carrier and my grandmother was a nurse. My aunts and uncles did some baby-sitting, but my dad was always running around town with his friends. This was back in the days when Los Angeles was still a safe, rural place (I know, hard to imagine now, but it’s true). There was no real need for supervision.
My dad had a difficult childhood, but it wasn’t horrible. God ALWAYS provides when you put your trust in Him. NO ONE in that house wanted for love. There was ALWAYS someone there to love, someone to help out or listen when it was needed, someone to give hugs, etc.
My grandmother and her family moved to California when they lost their farm in Nebraska during the dust bowl. She didn’t want her children to experience that kind of hardship, so she worked long hours in hospital, so they didn’t have to.
My grandfather came from a family that immigrated to Los Angeles from Quebec in the early 1900s. My great-grandfather ran a speak-easy in LA in the 1920s since he made his own beer because he had glaucoma and couldn’t deal with the pain. He suffered a lot because of his disease. My grandfather wanted his children to be able to have the medical care they needed, so he worked long hours, too. It was a good thing, because my dad had juvenile arthritis, and he and several of my aunts and uncles developed type-1 diabetes.
The point is that not everyone who comes from a large, Catholic family has a bad childhood. It doesn’t mean that parents are irresponsible when not supervising the children, just that they’re busy trying to make a better life for their children than they had. Maybe people forget that when they are hurting, but that’s when they need to reach out to someone to ask for help. It is NOT a family’s size that causes the hurt, but the situation surrounding the family.
Large families, including mine, shouldn’t be condemned because your mother had a bad childhood. You seem to think that everyone in her situation also had a bad childhood, but that’s just not true. Large families do not cause problems. It’s just the situations around a family that does cause problems. It has NOTHING to do with size.
Ashley,
I am sorry for the relationship you have with your mother and the ways she influences you. You can email me anytime. I haven’t seen my mother in 8 years as her anger and bitterness and hatred was something I would not have my children around.
Praying for you.
More on Catholic families, birth control, and kids: Nearly my whole family is Catholic, but one of my aunts is more devout than the rest of us. (The decorating scheme in the house can be described as “Jesus and deer heads”.) She and my uncle have four kids, and shortly after they had the last one, people would ask her if they planned to have another and she said, “No, I think this is it.” Maybe there are health reasons I don’t know about, but in any event, they apparently decided they were done after four, and my aunt is just about the last person to disagree with the Catholic Church on anything. I figure they probably went with NFP. (All four kids, by the way, are really nice kids. Sometimes they get irritable, but I’ve never seen them be flat-out mean to each other.)
One of my grandfathers was the eighth (I think) of twelve kids, so though I personally wouldn’t want a family that big, I’m glad someone had one. :)
Ashley and Carla, I’m so sorry about your situations with your moms. I’m really close to mine, and I can’t imagine what it would be like if I weren’t.
Marauder,
Thank you! I have some amazing mother/grandmother figures that “stand in the gap” for me and my children. :)
Max has obviously done his research. All he’s done is speak out about his opinions. You people are all criticizing Max, when the truth is, there are millions of other teens out there who believe the same things that he does. We as parents need to be supportive of our children. We can’t stand over their shoulders our whole lives. Regardless of age and upbringing, people are going to make their own opinions. That’s a given. Max has made his opinion and is supporting it and standing behind it. Everybody out there needs to look past the article and its topic and see that this is a kid fighting for what he believes in, even though it is a controversial topic. Wouldn’t we all like our kids to find something they think is worth fighting for, and then to go for it? Max, if you’re reading this, I have a deep respect for you and please keep fighting!
Max has obviously done his research. All he’s done is speak out about his opinions. You people are all criticizing Max, when the truth is, there are millions of other teens out there who believe the same things that he does. We as parents need to be supportive of our children. We can’t stand over their shoulders our whole lives. Regardless of age and upbringing, people are going to make their own opinions. That’s a given. Max has made his opinion and is supporting it and standing behind it. Everybody out there needs to look past the article and its topic and see that this is a kid fighting for what he believes in, even though it is a controversial topic. Wouldn’t we all like our kids to find something they think is worth fighting for, and then to go for it? Max, if you’re reading this, I have a deep respect for you and please keep fighting!
“Wouldn’t we all like our kids to find something they think is worth fighting for, and then to go for it? Max, if you’re reading this, I have a deep respect for you and please keep fighting!”
Some kids believe drugs are worth fighting for and join a gang. Some kids think race is worth fighting for and become a skin head. Some kids think money is worth fighting for and commit robberies. Some kids believe death is worth fighting for and become a proabort.
Not all things are worth fighting for Debra. I am fighting for the rights of the humans like the one in the photo up a ways. I am fighting for the lives of people like him! HE WAS ALIVE AND WORTH FIGHTING FOR and where where you and Max then?
I think it’s time to come to grips with your own abortion and quit using and enabling young people to ease your own conscience.
Sorry… slogging through about a hundred back-logged messages, here, so I’m a bit late to the party!
MarkB wrote:
Paladin, “Rare” or not, that’s your opinion, these societal issues still exist.
(??) I’m trying to figure out your point, here; didn’t I just get done saying that, even if your alleged “scarcity” of willing adoptive parents for at-risk children exists, the fact is IRRELEVANT? If something’s right, it’s right (even if 99%, or even 100%, of the people on Earth reject it); if something’s wrong, it’s wrong (even if 99%, or 100%, of the people on Earth approve of it). Are you disagreeing with that?
Yet neither side has solutions to them.
I really must ask you to rein in the vague language, here. I could do that, too, with equally illogical results: “Wow… both sides of the aisle hate rape, but neither side has any solutions to the problem, since it’s still widespread! I think we should introduce “pro-choice legislation” to make rape a personal choice under the law–and try instead to change hearts, not criminalize an already weighty choice!”
See what nonsense follows, when you use a flawed set of starting assumptions?
We hope the few people who are helping these children do a good job, and we turn our head away from those that we don’t see or know about.
(??) What are you talking about? Are you claiming that pro-life people, by definition, turn a blind eye to bad/abusive adoptive parents? If so, do you have any evidence for that wild assertion?
Perhaps you could stick to my main questions: why do YOU think it’s better to KILL those children? And why do you think it’s better to kill those children in the womb, BEFORE YOU KNOW whether they’d be “too miserable to let live” (whatever that means), rather than wait and see (until, say, age 3, 5, 15, 30, etc.) whether their lives are redeemed, and THEN kill them if things go “badly enough”?
Another reality is if we were to outlaw abortion, for a woman who really wants one, she’ll still get one. Either in back alley clinics, do it themselves or some other nasty form, but they will still occur. Again, this is reality, history has proven this, and no matter how “rare” you think these things are, they do occur.
And you still forget my main point: of COURSE such violations of human rights (most notably that of the child who’s torn apart) occur… but the fact that they are evil requires that we maintain and enforce laws against them. Their frequency, popularity, etc., are MEANINGLESS.
Turn your head if you want,
I’d appreciate it if you’d include an explanation of that comment, one of these times…
make it illegal, hopefully it won’t happen anymore. Maybe all these children will find homes, help and even love. Right.. Maybe… brilliant strategy.
Mark, look: can you not see that murder is wrong? If murder became so popular in the USA that 99% of Americans indulged in it, it’d still be wrong, and we’d still need to maintain laws against it. Same here; your idea of “if a law won’t end it completely, then the law is useless and should be removed” is insane.
Bob wrote:
What a great kid! What the rest of you fail to realize is that “pro choice” doesn’t mean “pro-abortion.” Gosh – you folks really don’t seem to have a clue. Keep up the good work Max! We need more teenagers like you. I am sorry that misinformed folks like Jill have to pick on young folks like you. On sites like this you probably won’t get much support, but please realize Max there are thousands of us out there to support you.
Yeesh. If I’d *tried* to get a more textbook example of a paragraph written by a troll, I could hardly find a better example than this.
1) ridiculously exaggerated compliment toward the antagonist of the story
2) gratuitous insults toward blog owner and supporters
3) “you-rah-rah” types of cheerleading for whomever is against the blog’s theme and message
Do these people have a macro and computer script which just generate this mindless drivel at the touch of the “F11” key, or something?
Max wrote:
If you do your research on me then you will find I’ve had open discussions with both pro-choice and anti-choice organizations.
Hm. “Anti-choice”? I suppose this means that you think we’d forbid people from making a “free choice” about career, hairstyle, favourite flavour of ice-cream, and such?
Full marks for dedication; but, as your rightful antipathy towards Hitler might tell you, dedication and research and conviction really won’t do any good if you choose an evil cause. Right?
Argh.
Debra wrote:
Max has obviously done his research.
Debra… for the love of all that’s good and right, can I please beg you to *think* about what you’re saying?? “Research” is only as good as the material researched, and the ability of the researcher to process it; garbage in, garbage out.
All he’s done is speak out about his opinions.
Yes… and you’ll not that we commented on the utter insanity of those opinions. To have the “opinion” that killing unborn children is acceptable is as insane as the “opinion” that all brown-haired people can be killed and used as sausage.
You people are all criticizing Max, when the truth is, there are millions of other teens out there who believe the same things that he does.
That’s sadly true. What’s your point? Popularity = right? Didn’t your mother ever teach you the “if everyone jumped off a bridge, would you, too?”, idea…? If rape became just as popular with teens, would you indignantly defend their right to agitate for THAT? There’s the small matter of finding out whether the “popular thing” is a terrible evil, or not, you know…
We as parents need to be supportive of our children.
Right. We need to teach them right from wrong, and not simply abdicate our responsibility to let “survival of the fittest” tear them (and others) to shreds.
We can’t stand over their shoulders our whole lives.
Who’s asking you to do that?
Regardless of age and upbringing, people are going to make their own opinions. That’s a given.
Of course. Some will, if guided by sane reason and sane parents, form sane and good opinions. Others will form destructive and insane opinions. I’m one of those funny people who don’t think that’s a trivial matter.
Max has made his opinion and is supporting it and standing behind it.
Right. And his opinion is both evil and wrong, and we have a responsibility to warn him away from it.
Everybody out there needs to look past the article and its topic and see that this is a kid fighting for what he believes in, even though it is a controversial topic.
(*sigh*) Debra, please THINK for a moment. The mere fact that someone has a conviction isn’t automatically “good, right, and defense-worthy”; if you [hypothetically] had, and fought for, the conviction that I should be murdered in my sleep, wouldn’t that be wrong… no matter how courageously you fought for your sincere conviction? I think so, anyway…
Wouldn’t we all like our kids to find something they think is worth fighting for, and then to go for it?
Even if the “something” is to steal, break, rape and kill? I’ve known plenty of gang kids who’d die for those “ideals”, provided that they’re directed against rivals (and anyone else who crosses them). Do you approve?
Max, if you’re reading this, I have a deep respect for you and please keep fighting!
Debra, you’re being a fool. Think about what you’re doing! Even Max’s wrong-headed and disastrous and foolhardy support for abortion is more comprehensible than your “get a cause, no matter how good or evil, and defend it! Rah! Rah! Rah!”
When I was Max’s age, the proabort females loudly claimed that the subject of abortion was strictly off-limits to males. Males were to have no opinion about the topic. A teen boy would have never been allowed into their bash-all-males and prolife-females group.
Using a teen boy as a spokesperson speaks volumes obout the trie desperation of the proaboart mission.
Busy fingers are happy fingers. . . . .
Oops.
about the true desperation of the proabort mission.
Slow down fingers!
Palandin,
You’re a mean spirited human. Calling people trolls, comparing them to Hitler and being snide with your posts. Really?? No matter what anyone expresses, according to you they are dead wrong, and you tell them so in a condescending manner. Man…I gotta know, what’s it like to be so high and mighty and is the air up there really as good as they say it is?
I learned, even as a teen, that the minute you voice an opinion, you best be prepared to A. back it up and B. be criticized…and sometimes, if you’re lucky have C. people agree with you.
If Max can’t do that, then perhaps he shouldn’t voice his opinion–oh he has a RIGHT to his opinion, nobody’s doubting that, but it doesn’t mean his opinion is right.
The thing is, even as a teen, if you voice an opinion some people are going to agree, some disagree and some think you’re out of your mind for having it. (Doesn’t mean you are, it just means that’s one of the reactions).
I don’t know why, with Max’s caliber of education, he’d come to the conclusion that the pro-choice/abortion stance was such a good one to support–especially supporting PP, but based on what he said about his parents supporting PP, you see the influence.
Whether we admit it or not or like it or not, we are, somehow influenced by our parents and how we’re brought up. Some people end up rejecting the way they were brought up and the stances and beliefs (whether right or wrong) but one way or another, a person is influenced.
Anybody who does serious research into PP will realize the founder was extremely racist and it wasn’t about “choice” at all. It was about which race was “superior”. PP has tried to change that image over the years, but there’s still glimspes and still some mindsets on what they do that were influenced by Sanger.
PP workers are taught rhetoric–what to say–what not to say. (We’ve seen enough of those videos to know this is true). When exposed, they often cover their tracks by either getting rid of said worker or issue some sort of public message denying it. Then they go back to doing the same thing. They don’t do anything to get rid of the problems (based on what I see, they don’t even try to).
A lot of other places that have had exposed problems do try to implement programs and things to help–it may not be perfect or totally get rid of the problem, but at least those places try…I don’t see PP trying to do anything but pad their bottom line.
Abortion IS a business. It’s harsh and cold to say that, but abortion is harsh and cold. People taut it as a “personal” decision (suggesting that anybody having an opinion contrary to letting someone go ahead and have an abortion is wrong) they also claim it doesn’t do any harm (which goes against research and the huge amounts of women who have come forward with their stories).
To deny all this and to bury your heads in the sand and say “That isn’t my position” is to kid yourself. I think Max, in spite of any research he might’ve done, is severely and horribly kidding himself into believing this position is okay and that PP is okay.
Those doctors usually don’t care…I mean look at he Tele-medication! That’s not even a doctor being physically present! How is that any more reassuring? I’d feel like a number or just a face on a screen rather than a person. The medical field can sometimes been very impersonal, this just makes things worse.
So yeah, I think if Max can’t take being told he’s wrong, he should just stop right now because that’s gonna happen his entire life–at least one person is gonna say “You’re wrong” it happens to all of us.
MarkB,
First of all, I’m one who believes that words actually *mean* things; they’re not just a description of how I feel at any given moment. Case in point: there really is such a thing as an internet troll; you can read more, here. I didn’t use the term for insult value; I used it to describe a present reality, in which a random commenter threw inflammatory rhetoric instead of reasoned discourse. Believe me or not, as you like.
Re: “comparing people to Hitler”: could you please quote where I did that? The only mention of Hitler’s name was to Max, where I talked about his (completely understandable) antipathy–i.e. negative attitude toward–Hitler. If you’re going to throw accusations, perhaps you might read a bit more carefully?
Re: being “snide”; unless you can tell me exactly what you mean by that (i.e. what comments of mine you consider “snide”, and why”), it’s really not of much use. I could easily (and with good reason) call this last comment by you “snide”, couldn’t I? It’s never my intent to cause pain or offense… but it’s rather presumptuous of you to say that my style somehow violates standards of right and wrong, simply because you don’t like it.
No matter what anyone expresses, according to you they are dead wrong,
(??) No matter what *anyone* expresses? I think most commenters on this blog would disagree with you, friend. If you disagree, give the reasons; don’t whine about them.
and you tell them so in a condescending manner.
I’m sorry you think so; and you’re welcome to that opinion… but again, the fact that you label something of mine “condescending” really doesn’t prove much.
Maybe you could stick to the discussion’s main points, rather than trying to derail the discussion with your gripes about my style? You’re welcome to hate my style; but it’d help if you addressed the substance of the discussion.
Man…I gotta know, what’s it like to be so high and mighty and is the air up there really as good as they say it is?
(*sigh*) Do you appreciate the irony, here? In your attempts to complain about my manners, you manage to call me “mean-spirited”, “condescending”, “high and mighty”, and other synonyms for “arrogant”; above and beyond the fact that you’re way off base, do you think you might consider following your own standards of civility before you try lecturing anyone else about them?
Now… any chance you could scroll back and answer the salient points of the discussion (e.g. why do you think that it’s better to kill children rather than let them be born into potentially dysfunctional families)?
Mark B, I think everything Paladin said was respectful and TRUTHFUL. You’ve been on here quibbling with everyone but no one has accused you of being high and mighty for having your own opinions, as foolish as they are.
The fact that we pro-lifers are not afraid to speak out because we have truth on our side just rubs you pro-aborts the wrong way doesn’t it?
I was raised pro-life and made to protest abortion in the streets. I was brainwashed to believe abortion was murder and that adoption was the best option. Well, I’m adopted and as I grew older I became pro-choice. Being unwanted, and knowing my biological mother suffered greatly from the “choice” to give me away, have caused great psychological damage.
Some people regret abortion, some regret giving their child away, and some regret choosing parenthood. Just the same, some people are very happy to have made those same choices. I wish very much I had been a wanted child. I wish my biological mom had had the chance to make her own decision in what to do, however, her family’s religious beliefs did not permit abortion, and she had no money and no one offered to help her raise her child. Adoption was her only “choice”.
My story is not meant to speak for everyone. We all have our own stories. But I am pro-choice because I believe women are empowered by having the choice to have children or not. To me, being pro-choice means supporting someone’s decision to have a child, to adopt out, or have an abortion. It means that I don’t think all unplanned pregnancies have to be unwanted. I don’t believe in forcing any choice on any woman, despite what I may believe. I didn’t think my sister should have a baby, but I didn’t voice that, instead supporting her decision to keep her child. Unfortunately she decided later she didn’t want it…
In my own life, it means offering to help my parents raise my niece because my sister got pregnant, refused abortion because she and the rest of my family are pro-life, and promptly realized how hard it was and decided to leave and make my parents raise her child. It means volunteering at orphanages when I have the time to help kids who need love. It means standing up for my beliefs and the rights of women all over, including the right to safe, affordable childcare. It means waiting for the right time for my husband and I can have children so that we can devote our lives when we’re ready to those children, equally.
Some of my friends who fight for a woman’s right to choose abortion would not choose abortion for themselves. They believe choice should still be available though, and we also support making raising children easier on single, poor women faced with unplanned pregnancies, making birth control more easily available, and making the adoption process easier.
As a woman, I see this Max as one of those guys who’ll sleep with a girl to his rocks off then if she becomes pregnant, he’ll suggest she kill it. This kid is equal to the likes of Stalin,Hitler,bin Laden and maybe even Charles Manson. It’s people like Max that have no clue that abortion is killing the human race. Face it kid, you’re not worthy to speak even a single word. Once you turn 18, you might be worth something I’ve known abusers like you Max. The baby is still a human life and you are guilty of murder for suggesting pro-choice is a good thing.
I apologize. In my rage over the fact this kid is an imbecile I left out the word “get” in a sentence
I apologize. In my rage over the fact this kid is an imbecile I left out the word “get” in a sentence.
Hey Ashley,
Great to hear you’re interested in getting counseling for your mother. Before a counselor even offers any advice to your Mom, I’m sure she would feel a tremendous sense of relief just getting all that junk “off her chest”. Sorry for the gross analogy, but it’s like lancing a boil and getting all the infectious puss out of there so true healing can begin.
Then, once she’s gotten all that junk “out in the open”, she’ll be able to see how to deal with it.
It isn’t complicated, but she does need help working through it or she’ll continue to struggle.
She’s caught in a vicious cycle and needs help to break out.
Email me with the city you live in if you’d like me to try to find someone for you:
edhull323@gmail.com
abortion is killing the human race? Seriously?
Lots of humans around where I live.
abortion is killing the human race? Seriously? Lots of humans around where I live.
Well… it’s called “hyperbole”, Hal… and many people do partake of it, from time to time; though it’s getting dangerously close to literal truth. Have you checked the population growth rates of the western nations, compared to their replacement rates, lately?
But think about it: if a mother can be desensitized/brainwashed into killing her own child, and at a point where he/she’s completely defenseless and completely dependent on the mother, then what else couldn’t we do, as a race? Killing anyone or anything else gets quite a bit easier. Look at the involuntary euthanasia going on in the western nations (including the United States), for example.
But ultimately, Hal, you currently think that killing unborn children is okay… and I suspect that you approve of euthanasia, as well. Right? It might be helpful to establish that, first…
“I wish very much I had been a wanted child. I wish my biological mom had had the chance to make her own decision in what to do, however, her family’s religious beliefs did not permit abortion, and she had no money and no one offered to help her raise her child. Adoption was her only “choice”.”
Posted by: CK at July 23, 2010 1:42 PM
CK, But you don’t state you wish you were aborted. If you do have feelings that you wish you had never been born, you need to immediatly call a suicide hotline. There are loving and caring people ready and willing to help you. Please take that first step towards them.
You also state you have a niece who “decided to leave and makes my parents raise her child.” No one is “making” your parents do this. They choose to raise this child.
Actually, it wouldn’t bother me if I had been aborted. I wouldn’t know, so I wouldn’t care. There is a difference in never having existed and committing suicide as an adult. A big difference. I can’t go back in time anyways, however, if I could, and if I knew I could spare my biological mother a lifetime of pain, sure I’d tell her to have an abortion. I’d never know anyways. But, as we know, going back in time is quite impossible. Suicide is something completely different, and I am already in counseling anyways for my problems that stem from being adopted, unwanted. My husband also helps.
And yes, in a way my parents don’t have a choice. They already had fallen in love with my niece. She’s over a year old and has lived with them. They aren’t about to give the baby away to someone else at this point. So they are “forced” because they can’t bear to try to put their granddaughter up for adoption to a stranger at this point, and they fear for her life and well-being if they tried to force my sister to care for her.
All situations are different. One person’s experience is not another. This is simply my experience. I know people who are much older than me who had abortions and have never regretted them, knowing that the children and loving families they have NOW would not exist if it weren’t for that abortion, and knowing that they made the right choice for them. I know people who made the choice to parent, and some of them did fine and feel the made the right decision, others, like my sister, changed their mind and abandoned their babies. I know of those who regret giving their baby away, mostly my biological mother.
We are all different. We all have different choices to make, and we all make those choices and learn from them. I believe women have the right to make choices regarding having children. Those choices should be made easier though, by having available and affordable birth control, childcare, education, etc. No one should ever be forced into an abortion, having children, or giving their child up for adoption. I support each one of these choices, as long as it is the woman’s choice.
CK wrote:
I was raised pro-life and made to protest abortion in the streets. I was brainwashed to believe abortion was murder and that adoption was the best option. Well, I’m adopted and as I grew older I became pro-choice. Being unwanted, and knowing my biological mother suffered greatly from the “choice” to give me away, have caused great psychological damage.
CK, believe me: I don’t want to minimize the pain you went through. But you’ve just shown the key reason why morality can’t be decided by “feelings”, no matter how deep or sincere. Anti-abortion folk (such as I) can match you, emotion for emotion (can you imagine our motivation when we see abortion for what it is: the tearing of a baby, limb from limb?), I assure you. No… we need to stick to our brains, and our sane reason, to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong. Torture is wrong, no matter how many deranged people find it delightful; rape is wrong, no matter how many twisted people revel in it.
Think about this: how can one person be the product of brutal rape and be anti-abortion, and another person be the product of a “miserable family” and be abortion-tolerant? Does the “miserable origins” prove your case, or hers? It can’t prove both, because they’re opposites; either abortion is always an evil and murderous act, or it is not.
Again: we can’t rely on “my upbringing [or the upbringing of my family] was [x], so I think abortion should be allowable”; that might explain why you FEEL that way, but it doesn’t even come close to proving that it’s RIGHT. And if we’re going to be killing innocent children, we’d bloody well BETTER be right, and not just indulging in wishful thinking.
CK… if you had been aborted it wouldn’t have met you “never existed”. What do you think is sucked out of a woman during an abortion? NOTHING? NO…its a perfectly formed human being with a heartbeat and brain waves. That is not propaganda. That is biological fact.
Are you saying that the death of a child, whether en utero or at birth, or at 3 months or 3 years is not as tragic as the death of an adult?
CK… if you had been aborted it wouldn’t have meant you “never existed”. What do you think is sucked out of a woman during an abortion? NOTHING? NO…its a perfectly formed human being with a heartbeat and brain waves. That is not propaganda. That is biological fact.
Are you saying that the death of a child, whether en utero or at birth, or at 3 months or 3 years is not as tragic as the death of an adult?
Are you saying that the death of a child, whether en utero or at birth, or at 3 months or 3 years is not as tragic as the death of an adult?
Posted by: Sydney M. at July 23, 2010 4:44 PM
I think what some people are saying is that the “death” of a “child” 6 to 9 months before birth is not tragic.
I think what some people are saying is that the “death” of a “child” 6 to 9 months before birth is not tragic.
Hal… why the “scare quotes” around “death” and “child”? Do you seriously believe that abortion doesn’t cause the death of the offspring of the mother?
Hal, I think that some people would say that your death would not be tragic. I know I’d have some say my death wouldn’t be tragic. History shows that this message is repeated over and over about different groups of humans.
What some people would feel about our (or any other group of people’s deaths) wouldn’t make it less tragic to those who care about us.
The fact alone that millions of prolifers care about unborn persons makes the intentional killing of unborn persons absolutely tragic.
I really wasn’t focusing on my particular situation. I don’t expect my particular experience to speak for everyone. My main point was about choices. I will repeat the most important thing I was trying to say:
All situations are different. One person’s experience is not another. This is simply my experience. I know people who are much older than me who had abortions and have never regretted them, knowing that the children and loving families they have NOW would not exist if it weren’t for that abortion, and knowing that they made the right choice for them. I know people who made the choice to parent, and some of them did fine and feel the made the right decision, others, like my sister, changed their mind and abandoned their babies. I know of those who regret giving their baby away, mostly my biological mother.
We are all different. We all have different choices to make, and we all make those choices and learn from them. I believe women have the right to make choices regarding having children. Those choices should be made easier though, by having available and affordable birth control, childcare, education, etc. No one should ever be forced into an abortion, having children, or giving their child up for adoption. I support each one of these choices, as long as it is the woman’s choice.
Your argument that there are people who abort their offspring and don’t regret this choice later is ridiculous.
There are people who lie, cheat, steal, rape and murder who don’t regret it later either. After all, we are all different, right CK.
%$%# %^# @*&$!!
CK, you seem to think being “unwanted” means having a lifetime of pain and misery. What about people who grow up in seemingly “normal” households and are miserable and unhappy, or go out and do terrible things? I’m thinking of those two in Columbine, specifically (Klebold and Harris). It seemed like that they had a good upbringing — two professional parents who cared about them, a home in a nice neighborhood, etc. It seems that they were both loved and “wanted.” But look at the suffering they caused.
None of us has a crystal ball — just because someone is born into a bad situation doesn’t mean that their life is going to be terrible, and vice-versa.
CK,
Praxedes hit the main point (and with far more power and brevity than I could, I think! :) ), but please try to think about what you’re saying:
I really wasn’t focusing on my particular situation. I don’t expect my particular experience to speak for everyone. My main point was about choices.
Here, you’re promoting the idea of moral relativism–the idea that there is no absolute, universal “right and wrong”, but only different opinions for different people. “Your truth for you, and my truth for me!” It even sounds rather tolerant, generous, and reasonable on its face… but there are three key problems with it:
1) it isn’t tolerant. Moral relativists are completely intolerant of those who insist on moral absolutes (such as the absolute evil of rape, for example), as a rule.
2) It isn’t generous. It robs people of any reason to stand for something bigger than themselves. After all: if all views are mere opinions conjured up by people, then how can they be bigger than the people who conjured them? If you have nothing for which you’re willing to doe, then you really don’t have much to live for.
3) it isn’t reasonable; in fact, it’s self-contradictory. I believe that your moral relativism is wrong, and that some truths aren’t dependent on human opinion; you believe the opposite. Two opposites cannot possibly be true; at least one of us must be wrong… so there’s no use in saying, “well, we can each have our own opinion!” Yes… but we can’t each have our own facts. Someone’s opinion, in this case, must be wrong.
So… can you see why I (and others) would have a problem with a view that’s intolerant, ungenerous, and illogical, completely in defiance of what it promises to be?
Argh. In the above, I meant:
If you have nothing for which you’re willing to DIE
…of course!
Short version: opinions and feelings simply aren’t designed to sort out good from evil, crimes from heroism. We need to use our heads, not our passions, to decide what’s what; THEN we use our emotions to “propel” us in the needed direction, with extra energy.
CK, if you had been aborted, you would have still existed. You would have still had a beating heart, your own unique DNA, clearly discernable limbs, and been a separate person from your birth mother.
I’m sure your husband is glad you weren’t aborted. Seeing as you’re married and he helps you, I assume he loves you and wants to spend the rest of his life with you. Think of all the other people who could have been someone’s cherished spouse, but were killed in the womb and never even got the chance to try to make a happy life for themselves. Those weren’t hypothetical people. They were real, living unique people, and now they’re dead.
abortion is killing the human race? Seriously? Lots of humans around where I live.
——————————-
What did you THINK they were killing, Hal? Kittens?
“I think what some people are saying is that the “death” of a “child” 6 to 9 months before birth is not tragic. “
Then why in the world did you and your wife mourn your miscarriage loss? If it wasn’t tragic, why mourn?
Do you have any idea how insulting your comment above here was to those of us who have lost children and do consider it tragic? If you want to pretend that the death of a child in the womb isn’t a loss, that’s your right – but I think you have the ability to be a lot more sensitive to others besides yourself.
All situations are different. One person’s experience is not another. This is simply my experience. I know people who are much older than me who had abortions and have never regretted them, knowing that the children and loving families they have NOW would not exist if it weren’t for that abortion, and knowing that they made the right choice for them.
How do you know they never regretted them? And how does regret change whether an action is bad or not? A person could rape a woman and not feel regret for it…they might even feel that if they hadn’t raped a woman, they could never be where they are today- but would that make it right?
We are all different. We all have different choices to make, and we all make those choices and learn from them.
The children who are aborted are unique people too, but they do not get the choice to grow up, make mistakes, and learn from them. That choice is taken away from them.
I believe women have the right to make choices regarding having children. Those choices should be made easier though, by having available and affordable birth control, childcare, education, etc. No one should ever be forced into an abortion, having children, or giving their child up for adoption.
Just a little note: The majority of women who have abortions are coerced into it.
Imagine this scenario: A woman, who is not educated and knows nothing about birth control, and doesn’t have any money or support from anyone, goes into labor at home and has a baby. She realizes that she cannot afford to take care of this baby, so she considers her options. She decides that she cannot possibly put her baby up for adoption because it would be too heartbreaking. She can’t keep the baby because she doesn’t have the things she needs to support him/her. So she stabs the infant in the heart.
Would this be an acceptable choice, to you?
If not, why not? If not, what do you think she should have done instead?
I support each one of these choices, as long as it is the woman’s choice.
Would this statement still apply in the scenario I described above?
Ashley, I am so sorry to hear about your mother and the problems she’s been dealing with and has forced you to deal with as well. I agree with you that she probably needs to seek some counseling.
Has she ever had an abortion before?
See Max? you seem like such a smart, respectful young man (gosh, saying that makes me sound soooo old! See what 30 does to you?)
But really…you sound like you have a good head on your shoulders. I just don’t see how you can have the internet at your fingertips and be pro-choice. You’ve seen video of abortions taking place I assume? How can you think thats okay? (Center for Bioethical Reform website has one as well as Grantham Collection website)
How in your intelligent brain do you feel that dismembering a child is good for a woman? As a woman and a mom I am going to tell you you are WRONG Max. It is not what women want. When we have an unplanned pregnancy we are scared but what we want is SUPPORT. We want the fathers of our children to step up and tell us they will be there emotionally and financially if need be. To me pro-“choice” males mean men who will “support” us into letting them off the hook by aborting.
I hope through the years as you investigate this topic you will come to the conclusion that human life should never be killed at the whims of others.
Max,
Are you really 16 years-old or is Mom or Dad writing your comments? Something just doesn’t seem right….
Janet: I usually like to wait and answer a bunch of comments in a group but I don’t like being called a fake. I really am 16 (a quick Google-ing will likely come up with my name on my highschools honor role) and I am also really writing this, not anyone else.
Janet: I usually like to wait and answer a bunch of comments in a group but I don’t like being called a fake. I really am 16 (a quick Google-ing will likely come up with my name on my highschools honor role) and I am also really writing this, not anyone else.
“If anyone wore a graphic picture of a dead thing that resembled a human, I think that they should be asked to remove it.”
Posted by: Max Kamin-Cross at July 24, 2010 10:33 AM
Max, that dead thing resembles a human because it IS a human. You are old enough and smart enough to know that.
Now please tell me why you think it’s OK to have that human killed.
I can wait as long as it takes for you to come up with some kind of credible answer. But I don’t think one will be forthcoming.
Max, exactly why are you pro-choice? I would love to debate the issue with you, but I need to know which pro-choice camp you come from first.
Max, I understand that you prefer to answer questions in a group, but I think for a cohesive debate, it works better to address one stream of thought completely. You seem like an intelligent person who isn’t emotionally invested in abortion. *Many intelligent people who are post-abortive and pro-choice can’t debate the issue objectively because the realities of their own situation are too painful)I would love to go through the ethics of the situation with you, but it would require pretty consistent back and forth. You up for it?
Hi Max,
So nice to have you stop back. Although I can become snide (I think your generation calls this snarky) at times when it comes to the topic of abortion, I am sincerley grateful that you came back and replied to our comments.
I am going to defer to others who I believe can better (and more calmly) respond to your latest comment stating you think students should be asked to remove Tshirts that show “a dead thing that resembled a human.”
I would like to however comment on your sentence that states, “These are my beliefs though, and I am sticking with them.”
Your words remind me of the lyrics to the song, That’s My Story by Collin Raye. The lyrics show on some level the husband knows he is wrong and lying to himself and others but his abundant pride keeps him from joining his wife on the other side where the truth is waiting to set him free. Just some food for thought.
I remember there was a time that I used to believe the stork brought my sister and a fairy took my teeth. . . .
Have a fun and safe weekend Max. Peace.
“When I was a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” 1 Corinthians 13:11
Go Lauren!!
::pops popcorn::
Oh, and Max, I was pro-choice when I was 16. I should dig up some of my old livejournal posts from that time. I remember writing some really scathing stuff about the “Face the Truth Tour” back in those days…
In fact, I very nearly went with my mother to the “March for Women’s Lives” tour. I think I had a test for school or something so I “had” to miss it. Thank you God!
My point is that minds can be changed on the issue. Mine was changed slowly after having a preterm child and then really taking a hard look at all the evidence and arguments. When I was 16 I was a pro-choice liberal, and now I’m a pro-life conservative. Just be open to hearing arguments, even uncomfortable ones.
Lori Pieper: Lori I believe you and I have different definitions of what a human is, I would call that a fetus. Though I don’t believe that abortion truly kills a human I would like to keep the number of abortions as low as possible for many different reasons. To do that school need comprehensive sex-ed and we need to make every kind of birth control widely available at a low cost.
Lauren: I’m pro-choice because I value to life of the mother more than the “life” of the fetus. Being pro-choice is also more economically and socially sound in the long run. People who have abortions have them for their own reason, but common ones are that they cannot care for a baby at this time. Foster care in America is already underfunded and adoption is a long shot many times. If they raise the baby they may end up on welfare which is nowhere near the amount of money truly needed to raise a family. We also already have, what many environmental scientists consider, a population crisis. We are living above the Earth’s means and adding another un-wanted human into the mix will not help.
To All: I will do my best to check back more often if everyone would prefer that
HI Max.
“Lori I believe you and I have different definitions of what a human is, I would call that a fetus. Though I don’t believe that abortion truly kills a human…”
This is to confuse the accidents and substance of a being. A fetus is a stage of development, much like baby, adolescent, and adult. All of those stages, however, are stages of human development. It is a biological fact that the embryo and fetus is a human. A couple of quotes from biological texts should suffice:
“The development of a human being begins with fertilization, a process by which two highly specialized cells, the spermatozoon from the male and the oocyte from the female, unite to give rise to a new organism, the zygote.”
[Langman, Jan. Medical Embryology. 3rd edition. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, p. 3]
“Embryo: The developing individual between the union of the germ cells and the completion of the organs which characterize its body when it becomes a separate organism…. At the moment the sperm cell of the human male meets the ovum of the female and the union results in a fertilized ovum (zygote), a new life has begun…. The term embryo covers the several stages of early development from conception to the ninth or tenth week of life.”
[Considine, Douglas (ed.). Van Nostrand’s Scientific Encyclopedia. 5th edition. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, 1976, p. 943]
There really is no question whether or not the fetus is a human being. The question is whether all human beings have a inherent dignity and moral worthy simply in light of the fact that they are human. Or do we value human beings based on what they can do or some property they possess? Why do you morally (not legally) have a right to life? What is it about you that gives you this right? This is the question that must be answered when determining the morality of abortion.
“We also already have, what many environmental scientists consider, a population crisis. We are living above the Earth’s means and adding another un-wanted human into the mix will not help.”
If there is this problem, why not kill orphans and the poor? Because it is wrong to kill innocent human beings. But this is exactly what we claim about the unborn. Hence, any justification for abortion which appeals to population curbing is question begging since it assumes that the unborn are not human. This is the very claim of pro-lifers which needs to be addressed. If abortion does not end the life of a human being, then no justification is necessary for abortion. But if abortion takes the life of an innocent human being, no justification is adequate.
Hi Max,
The world’s population is declining. Many countries are below replacement level.
http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/CollegeandFamily/P92820.asp
Bobby Bambino: Just because the development of a human starts at fertilization, does that mean it’s a human then? The development of a birthday cake starts when you mix the eggs, flour, and sugar together; does that mean it’s a cake then?
Carla: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_totl&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=earth+population#met=sp_pop_totl&tdim=true
Just because the development of a human starts at fertilization, does that mean it’s a human then?
***********************
Kinda answered your own question, there, Max…
Eggs are eggs, flour is flour, oil is oil.
Sperm is sperm and ovum are ovum – until they join at amphimixis, when a new human life with distinct DNA is formed.
Eggs are eggs, flour is flour, oil is oil.
Posted by: Kel at July 24, 2010 1:06 PM
********************************************
And they can make a cake when they are mixed together, heat is added, and you wait. At what point do these ingredients actually turn into a cake?
“Just because the development of a human starts at fertilization, does that mean it’s a human then? The development of a birthday cake starts when you mix the eggs, flour, and sugar together; does that mean it’s a cake then?”
Yes it does. Biologically this is an established fact as the quotes I gave pointed out. The zygote has the a priori potential to become an adult ON ITS OWN given the proper environment. It is a self-organizing being. This is not the case with cake ingredients. They are simply an amalgamation. But the zygote is a whole integrated being who, given the proper environment and nourishment, will grow through the embryo, fetus, baby, toddler, child, and adult stage. Biologically there is nothing to distinguish them.
Max, are you saying that an unborn child is not a human being until the moment of birth?
Max, there is a very clear line in human reporduction when a new, unique human being has been formed. As mentioned before, this is amphimixis. This is the point where the male and female pronuculi allign and a new, diploid cell is formed.
It is very straightforward, and very clear cut.
In your cake analogy, it would be the moment that all of the ingrediants have been mixed together.
Max, I would like you to address Bobby’s point above regarding why we do not kill orphans/the poor/the disabled.
All of your arguments for abortion would be equally applicable to already born individuals. We can solve the population problem just as easily by killing born people as we can by killing unborn people. Why is it ok to take this utilitarian position for the unborn, but not the born?
Max, you absolutely failed to answer my question. If the “dead thing” looks so much like a human, then why is it not a human? Don’t you trust your eyes?
I’ll let you in on something. I’m a lot older than you. (No! you say). I myself was just your age, only 16, when the Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973. That was one of the saddest days of my life. Because back then I could SEE without a doubt that what was in a womb looked like, WAS a human being. And the thing was, there weren’t any pro-life or pro-choice arguments back then. That’s because no one ever expected that abortion would ever be considered legal throughout the land. All I had to do was LOOK at a picture of a developing fetus and understand for myself.
Your type of thinking is only too common though. Whites in the South looked at blacks, and they sure looked like human beings, but because prejudice and socio-economic reasons were so strong, they weren’t considered human beings. Same thing for Nazis and Jews.
In the same way, it’s all too easy to look at a baby in the womb, see a tiny human being, and then think about socio-ecnomic conditions, who is going to raise the child, etc. and back off from the truth. That is what you are doing.
And, using your own analogy, if you look in the oven door while the cake is baking, and you see something that -yes- looks like a cake, will you still say it’s not a cake? That it’s only a cake when you take it out of the oven? Or make it’s not a cake until it’s cooled off, or until you eat it, or until . . .
But I think you will agree that human lives are much more important than cakes. We have a duty to be sure what we are talking about when it comes to lives in the womb. This isn’t cake, it’s literally life and death, You are so far just parroting rhetoric you’ve memorized. You are not considering the thing in itself.
Fortunately you still have a lot of thinking and growing up to do. I hope you do it quickly for your sake and the sake of many human lives out there.
“In your cake analogy, it would be the moment that all of the ingrediants have been mixed together.”
Posted by: Lauren at July 24, 2010 1:20 PM
Great responses all, but I can’t resist to add that the mixed ingredients can’t become a cake on its own until it’s in the oven.
You know the old saying some use to describe a pregnant women?
She has a bun in the oven? :)
Max, It would be great to hear from you more often.
And by the way, Max, if abortion to you is not the taking of a human life, why do you say it should be as rare as possible? If abortion really isn’t taking human life, if there is truly nothing wrong with it, then why try to limit it? Why shouldn’t it be everyone’s ordinary back-up means of birth control? You are really giving yourself away here.
BTW, to be fair to Max, we should not expect him to give full responses to every single thing someone says. It can be extremely overwhelming to try and answer everything on a blog which holds the opposite beliefs you do since there are so many of them and so few of you (talking from personal experience here). I just don’t want Max to feel either overwhelmed or not welcomed because I appreciate his interest in the topic, which is more than I can say for most kids his age.
Max, I appreciate your dialogue with us. Thank you for being respectful.
I would like to point out that if you value women’s lives you would not support an unnecessary surgery that can likely kill her in the process and if that fails lead to cancer that will kill her later. On top of that abortion has been linked to suicide in young women (Stacy Zallie foundation) Please see Cemetery of Choice website which shows all the women who have died from SAFE LEGAL ABORTION. It is not in women’s best interests to have sharp instruments shoved blindly into their vulvas. The uterus during pregnancy has the consistency of a wet paper bag with massive amounts of blood flowing in and around it to support the baby. The risk of perforation is greater in a pregnant uterus than a non-pregnant uterus and the risk of hemorrhage is great because of all the blood present during pregnancy. Very very very dangerous. And for what? Social pressures? Economic pressures? Aren’t there better solutions to these problems that placing the women’s life at risk in a surgery that WILL kill her child?
BTW, as the baby boomers age there are not enough members of my generation and yours to become workers and support social programs like Social Security. Thats because 1/3 of our generation is missing Max. Abortion killed our peers.
Did you ever watch the videos of those abortions? Just curious.
Lori Pieper: Yet again, not a huge fan of being compared to the Nazis. It is obvious you believe life starts at conception, I do not agree and as I’ve said above I’m not going to try and change your mind. I’m pretty sure my ideas aren’t going to change, even when I’ve “grown up.” To answer your question on why I would like to have abortions as rare as possible: Though I completely support a women’s choice to abort her fetus, I know (and can see right here) many others don’t. If abortions weren’t so prevalent in today’s society we would not be getting into these arguments as often, and they would be less likely to become violent as happened on May 31, 2009 when Dr. George Tiller was murdered. It all starts in the education system. If we had comprehensive sex-ed that’s presents unbiased facts and shows students ways to get low cost birth control, abortions would become rare and Jill would most likely have to find another career path.
Bobby Bambino: I have no problem trying to answer as many questions as I can in a timely manner; I try to make it a habit to receive and respond everyone’s input.
Or like when a pro-choicer shot and killed pro-lifer Jim Pouillon on September 11 2009?
Abortion is violent. It begets violence. The problem is whether legal or not abortion will always be bloody, violent and provoke passionate emotion in people. Thats why I’m saying that you should be working to provide women with better options Max instead of working to spread abortion.
All my friends who went to Planned Parenthood for their abortions were never offered any help with other options such as prenatal care, adoption, parenting. They were only offered abortion (if they had the money ready of course!) Why don’t you work to offer women REAL choices Max? Do you know who Abby Johnson is? She is a former Planned Parenthood employee of the year who finally opened her eyes after witnessing an abortion and left the industry. She can testify that Planned Parenthood is all about keeping abortions prevelant. PP does NOT want abortion to be rare because that is how they make their money. So PP will stand up and talk about abortion being “safe, legal and rare” but their actions work to ensure there are more and more abortions. Its all about money Max. Don’t be so naive.
Max, once again, you utterly failed to even address my question.
If it looks like a human being (which you admit), then why isn’t it a human being?
Did you really skim over my entire answer and see nothing but the word “Nazi”?
As I said, I’m sure I will have to wait a goooooooood long time to get a credible answer here. Because you don’t have one.
Posted by: Max Kamin-Cross at July 24, 2010 2:52 PM
——-
Max – when does the embryo or fetus become a human being to you and why?
and Jill would most likely have to find another career path.
Oh, yes, that was respectful. Why don’t you read Jill’s bio, Max.
It is obvious you believe life starts at conception, I do not agree and as I’ve said above I’m not going to try and change your mind.
Whether or not you agree, Max, scientifically, a new human life is formed at amphimixis. This life has its own unique DNA.
You haven’t answered anyone’s questions. If you are very certain of your position (and that you can foretell the future and how you’ll never change your mind about the issue), then why not debate this with facts rather than rhetoric? You’ve jumped from “It’s not a life” to “my opinion is this, your opinion is that” to being offended that your beliefs were likened to those of Nazism, to George Tiller to sex ed.
And still, you’ve addressed no one’s questions. You didn’t address Bobby’s comments about the biology of the zygote, you didn’t answer when you believe life actually begins and you didn’t back up your claim that a fetus is not human.
To answer your question on why I would like to have abortions as rare as possible
Again, why?
To answer your question on why I would like to have abortions as rare as possible
Again, why?
Posted by: Kel at July 24, 2010 3:50 PM
*********************
Oh, wait, I think I get you now: You want abortions to be rare so no more abortionists are in danger. Right?
Max, I am not saying the man should get to choose life or death of fetus, but wouldn’t you agree that he should get to opt out of the whole parenthood thing early on if they were not trying to conceive and she was using birth control and gets pregnant anyway?
Sydney M: Jim Pouillon’s death was a senseless killing though the New York Times reported that the “shooting did not seem to her to be tied to the abortion debate.”
I’m sorry your friends have had bad experiences with Planned Parenthood, but I’ve always seen that if a woman decides she wants to keep the child they will provide checkups and can at times even assist with finding an adoption provider.
Lori Pieper: Well Lori, I really don’t think I (or any other pro-choice activist) will be able to give you a satisfactory answer. We do not believe a fetus is alive, and we value to life of the mother above the fetus. I doubt any pro-choicer will be able to change your views on this issue.
Chris Arsenault: Hey Chris, you know I’m really not sure. I’ve done my research but personally, I still can’t pick a specific point in development when I believe life actually starts. Even if I could, I still think it is up to the mother to make that choice. I am against anyone telling the mother whether she can or cannot get an abortion.
Kel: I’m sorry if I haven’t been as clear as you would like. I’ll try and lay out my thoughts and let me know if you need anything clarified. I believe that abortion needs to stay legal, and that it is up to the mother to decide if she wants to have an abortion or not. Now I also think that if American schools actually had comprehensive sex-ed class that taught about birth control instead of abstinence only educations the number of abortions would significantly drop. I believe abortion should always be legal, but if we had better sex-ed classes and more available birth control, the need to have abortions would diminish and at some point may even disappear. If that happened (which is likely won’t, but could someday) we would not have to have these arguments and violence like Dr. Tiller’s murder would not happen.
Truthseeker: Sorry I missed your comment, looks like I didn’t refresh my page.
Even if the woman is using a method of birth control, the man should always us a condom as a back up and to prevent STD’s/STI’s. If the condom breaks there is something called Plan B. This is available at most pharmacies without a prescription, all you have to do is ask for it. It will prevent a pregnancy within 5 days from the sex.
Max,
How old were you when you learned how humans become pregnant? How old where you when you learned what condoms were? What about the pill? When did you learn about Planned Parenthood and abortion?
With all due respect, because of the internet, your generation knows more about sex than any other generation before you. Your generation is SATURATED with sex and I can’t imagine a student getting out of 7th grade who hasn’t heard all about condoms and the pill/patch/shot, etc. (I work in a public middle school so do know a bit about what most of that age group already knows and doesn’t know.)
Why has the number of abortions GREATLY increased since the first years since it was legalized? And like someone else has pointed out, why not just use abortion as birth control if nothing is inherantly wrong with abortion?
Your generation does not need yet MORE sex education. The ‘importance’ and ‘benefits’ of birth control has been pounded in your heads by many sources but little has been taught to you about the importance and benefits of self control.
Thanks for sticking around. I have found that more often than not it is the students who are willing to listen with an open mind to the arguments that go against their own belief systems who are truly the brightest among their peers.
As a woman and parent to a 16 year old daughter, putting the decision onto the female regarding what two consenting adults (wishful thinking I know) are equally responsible for participating in, is very degrading to my gender.
I’ve done my research but personally, I still can’t pick a specific point in development when I believe life actually starts. Even if I could, I still think it is up to the mother to make that choice.
Posted by: Max Kamin-Cross at July 24, 2010 4:51 PM
——-
Let’s start at 9 months gestation.
Is it wrong for a mother to kill her child then – and if so why?
Praxedes – Yea I guess I could be catholic but I thought you holy men only liked blind boys??? Don’t start telling about right and wrong until you got your own house in order…
As for why I never called child services… THAT’S HOW HE GOT THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE!!! His previous foster homes weren’t much better anyway.
As for my views on life and death… I don’t like death. Who does? I just don’t think your life or my life is that important. I think all our lives or at least the progress we make down the evolutionary road collectively is important, but our personal, individual lives mean as much in the great scheme of things as a mosquito’s life. I look at life in general as a whole.
As for abortion violence you said it yourself. The procedure is done in a very short time and they move onto the next patient, because it’s a simple procedure. There is very minimal healing and no scaring to speak of. I have a bigger scar from having a pebble removed from my knee when I was 6.
As for PP “Profits” haven’t you noticed all the new PP buildings going up all over the country? It took years of fund raising to get all the $$$ together to build all those buildings. Now that those buildings are done well let’s just say that “profit” is long gone. Oh and just for fun try to compare PP “profits” to any other medical care group and you will see just how much money PP is out to make lol
As for the PILL KILLING lol the birth control pill has been in WIDE circulation for what 40 years? So where are the piles of women the pill has killed? What you’re talking about there is the same type of complications you get when the FDA releases any new drug into the market place. Just turn on your TV at about 2am to any station still playing and you will see 4 different commercials from lawyers trying to get you into to their new tort case against 40 different pills. Run the numbers on the amount of deaths there are attributed to heart medication, anti-cholesterol, or anti-depression drugs and see how well the PILL stands up over the last 40 years.
Max, you seem to be really good at answering questions without really answering them.
“Truthseeker: Sorry I missed your comment, looks like I didn’t refresh my page.
Even if the woman is using a method of birth control, the man should always us a condom as a back up and to prevent STD’s/STI’s. If the condom breaks there is something called Plan B. This is available at most pharmacies without a prescription, all you have to do is ask for it. It will prevent a pregnancy within 5 days from the sex. “
What if the woman wants to keep the baby, and you don’t? I am pretty sure you can see that is what Truthseeker was trying to get at.
“Well Lori, I really don’t think I (or any other pro-choice activist) will be able to give you a satisfactory answer.”
BINGO! You admit you have no answer. You have no credible reason whatsoever to think that something that looks like a human being is not a human being. And you’re happy with that? Are you comfortable with the fact that you are advocating the killing of what just might be human beings? Or do you think it’s reasonable to advocate their deaths without being sure?
I know you’ll probably say next: “What I meant was you won’t accept any reason I could give, so I won’t give one.” Nonsense, Max. If you had a reason that satisfied YOU, you would give it to me.
You need to think long and hard about this question. Because it’s a life and death question. Don’t pretend it’s not.
And don’t look to the cool pro-abort kids at school for the answers, the ones who have been feeding you all this rhetoric straight and unaltered from the playbook, the answers that don’t require any thought whatsoever. I suppose they were the ones who taught you to say: “If you have no reasoned argument, be sure and bring up George Tiller,” or “if you run across the word ‘Nazi’ complain about being compared to a Nazi and ignore everything else that was said.” (Most grown-up pro-aborts never get beyond this childish level either).
This is not reason or thought and you seriously need to engage in both before you have a right to an opinion. You are smart and you can do better than you have been doing here.
Chris Arsenault – Well No the way I see it until a baby is born and begins to live on its own, “by that I mean it is no longer attached to and housed by the mother”. It’s after birth that we find out if the baby can live. In the womb however, I see it as a side car on a motorcycle. Without being attached to that bike it serves no purpose, but if you put two more wheels on it you can coast it down a hill and it lives on to be a go-cart in its own right. Now calm down… it’s an analogy, I don’t need a speech about how humans are worth more than bikes…. What I am saying is that a fetus NEEDS its mother to continue to grow and function. Once you remove that fetus from the mother we find out if the new born baby can live on its own. You guys make this out to be some mystical magical wonder of existence but seriously even cockroaches can have kids….
To quote the Late Great George Carlin again… Why is it that when it’s a human they call it an abortion, but when it’s a chicken it’s called an omelet?
Max, you never answered the question regarding killing born people. Also, the only point in human development that isn’t arbitrary is amphimixis. That is when a new human being comes into existence, there is no debate.
Max, you never answered the question regarding killing born people. Also, the only point in human development that isn’t arbitrary is amphimixis. That is when a new human being comes into existence, there is no debate.
Hey Everyone,
Just wanted to comment on the fact that several hundred comments have been deleted. Not sure why but it seems as if the conversation no longer makes sense at the end. I have found that the entire, un-edited, conversation can be viewed at: https://www.jillstanek.com/2010/07/most-misguided-people-on-the-planet-pro-abort-youth
-Max Kamin-Cross
Way to go, Max; you’ve thought out the issues and are backing them up with action. That’s even more powerful given your young age. I’m glad you’re not listening to these uninformed, ideological ‘followers’ that write articles criticizing your courageousness or post comments to such articles illustrating their clear lack of reasoning and misguided emotional attempts at an argument. Reproductive rights are just that—rights. Thank you, Max.