Life Links 2-6-12
by JivinJ, host of the blog, JivinJehoshaphat
- Want to know why the NY Times editorials are consistently horribly reasoned and argued? Here’s Andrew Rosenthal, the Times’ editorial page editor, attempting to argue that abortions are rare in the United States. Seriously, abortions are rare because they are less common than blood transfusions and because there are more cancer-related surgeries? He also delusionally thinks that if abortion was banned, the abortion rate would remain the same.You gotta love this line though:
So was I right to call abortion “rare”? It’s relative, but the numbers don’t really matter.
- Mark Steyn on Planned Parenthood and Komen:By contrast, Komen’s first donations to Big Abortion were made voluntarily. A prudent observer would conclude that the best way to avoid being crowbarred by Cecile Richards [pictured lower immediate left; Komen’s Nancy Brinker on far left] is never to get mixed up with her organization in the first place.
- It’s not like she needs the money. Komen’s 2010 donation of $580,000 is less than Ms. Richards’s salary and benefits. Planned Parenthood commandos hacked into the Komen website and changed its slogan from “Help us get 26.2 or 13.1 miles closer to a world without breast cancer” to “Help us run over poor women on our way to the bank.” But, if you’re that eager to run over poor women on the way to the bank, I’d recommend a gig with Planned Parenthood: The average salary of the top eight executives is $270,000, which makes them officially part of what the
Obama
- administration calls “the 1 percent.”
- Ross Douthaton the media’s abortion blinders:Three truths, in particular, should be obvious to everyone reporting on the Komen–Planned Parenthood controversy. First, that the fight against breast cancer is unifying and completely uncontroversial, while the provision of abortion may be the most polarizing issue in the United States today. Second, that it’s no more “political” to disassociate oneself from the nation’s largest abortion provider than it is to associate with it in the first place. Third, that for every American who greeted Komen’s shift with “anger and outrage” (as Andrea Mitchell put it), there was probably an American who was relieved and gratified.
[Photo via voxxi.com]
Feb.06, 2012 4:35 pm |
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Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Depends how you define “rare.”
What are the odds that an American woman “of childbearing years” will have an abortion this year? I figure it’s something like 1 in 100. Pretty rare. Or, do we say “not rare” simply because “so many people have them”? Or do we say that doesn’t necessarily determine it, since that’s our of such a large population to begin with?
the statistics say 1/4 pregnant women will abort
Isn’t that funny? How many times have abortion advocates said abortion is good and should have very little stigma since it’s one of THE most common surgical procedures among women?
http://www.albertmohler.com/2012/01/20/abortion-is-as-american-as-apple-pie-the-culture-of-death-finds-a-voice/
I find it hilarious how they just can’t decide: is it common and therefore no big deal, or is it rare, and therefore no big deal?
Is the fetus a “parasite” or is it just “part of a woman’s body?”
Is the fetus “potential life” or is it “actual life” but insignificant when compared to that of its mother?
Decisions, decisions. I don’t know how they keep it all straight among themselves.
But the statistic that caught my eye, and led me to call abortion “rare” was this: In a given year, 2 percent of American women between the ages of 15 and 44 have an abortion. That means 98 percent of them do not.
Okay, then…. Let us suppose that, in any given year, only 2% of news editors are murdered by some lone psychopath. That means that 98% of editors survive, of course. I’d say that makes editoricide a rare sort of crime, hardly worth investigating.
Meanwhile, in Rosenthal’s own metropolis of New York City, 40% of pregnancies are terminated by abortion.
Rosenthal is either a liar or an idiot. (The evidence suggests that he is both.)
Gee, lets see… approximately 4.2 millions births, 1.2 million abortions, and 900,000 miscarriages in the U.S. each year. The abortions are “rare” and miscarriages are “a very common occurrence”. How does that work exactly?
I’ve been thinking of how to better phrase this, but I can’t; only a fool would think abortions are rare in any sense of the word.
And if they are abundant. Who cares! It’s nobody’s business except those women who made the decision to legally terminate their pregnancy. No big deal cept for zealots who want to control women. Funny, while the lifers whine about the abortion rate in the big Apple, many of their fellow right wingers are secretly happy that those secularist NY City harlettes aren’t reproducing.
“the statistics say 1/4 pregnant women will abort” – So what!
No, cc, BIRTH terminates a pregnancy. Abortion terminates a human being.
So, cc, I googled pregancy centers in your city. Shall I give a little to all of them, or do you have a favorite? Please answer right away so I can get my donation in the mail!
Also, please don’t refer to women as ‘harlettes’ because not only are you slutshaming, but you can’t spell. All that edjamicashun gone to waste….
Hey, just a thought: why don’t abortion apostles just call up Hilary Clinton and ask her to take back those ‘rare’ comments. She’s a big shot, right? So, just have her “clarify” her earlier words and explain that nobody is trying to make it RARE. You could use a snappy new slogan: “Steak should be rare, but not abortion!”
No big deal cept for zealots who want to control women.
Wow. If you weren’t blinded by ideology, you’d notice that the majority of Pro-Lifers here ARE women, we don’t want to CONTROL women, and our “big deal” is with the 1.2 million dead children being disposed of as medical waste every year.
But it’s not YOUR life being taken away from you, so no biggy, right CC? I just love it when pro-legal-abortionists open their big mouths and show how absolutely cruel and callous they are. Makes my charge TONS easier.
cc needs to be visited by the Ghosts of Children Past, Present, and Future.
“harlettes” – Ninek, you must be seriously irony challenged. You also must be unfamiliar with Bette Midler. I know what a harlot is and in your world is a woman who has sex outside of marriage, gets pregnant, and has an abortion, and doesn’t regret it. Am I right?
The 1% figure is wrong – which I wouldn’t care about, except this site has used the exact same argument before and it was pointed out that the figure it wrong.
To be in the top 1%, you need to make about $388,800 a year.
Furthermore, it isn’t what Obama calls the top 1%, it is what math calls the top 1%. It isn’t as if Obama could answer what 2+2 is, and then people should go around saying “well, the Obama administration says the answer is 4”. The answer IS 4. And the top 1% IS almost $400K, which again, was pointed out on this site just a little bit back.
I only find it odd because it was at the same time site people compared themselves to Tokyo Rose, and that stat was brought up as an intentional misrepresentation of the truth.
Would like to see the above post actually changed so I feel less like the site owners here are intentionally lying.
Ninek didn’t use the word harlette, whatever, CC, YOU DID.
WE CARE if abortions are abundant. Because that means MURDER is abundant, and of the worst kind, if you’re interested at all in social justice. If you don’t care, which we all know you don’t, then maybe it’s time to ask yourself: why DOESN”T the slaughter of 4000 babies every day make me a little more uncomfortable than I already am?
Oh, and PS: I am a worman, and I wouldn’t stand for a second having anyone controlling me or my body. But once my baby was here, in the room, the product of conception, in OR OUT of my body, I would understand that my priorities have and must chang(ed). Your heart must be black.
“the statistics say 1/4 pregnant women will abort”
No, they don’t.
Statistics show that 1/4 of pregnancies are aborted.
Basically you have some women who have one or several abortions, and the rest have zero. So, the group of women who abort is very much smaller than those who don’t. Closer to about 12% of women. About half of all abortions are to women who have already had an abortion, according to Guttmacher.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/11/21/or29.pdf
“Chapter 1 Introduction Among U.S. women having abortions in 2002, about one-half had already had a prior abortion.1 Given a rate of 21 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44,2 one out of every 100 women in this age-group obtained a second or higher-order abortion.”
I find it hilarious how they just can’t decide: is it common and therefore no big deal, or is it rare, and therefore no big deal?
Is the fetus a “parasite” or is it just “part of a woman’s body?”
Kel, I think going with “parasite” without another species being present is stretching things far enough that it’s silly. Often see it with the intent of pushing pro-lifer’s buttons, too.
When it comes down to one given woman with an unwanted pregnancy, I don’t think our feelings of how “rare” or how “common” abortion is matter all that much.
bobbi: the statistics say 1/4 pregnant women will abort
Not sure, but I think it’s closest to 1/5 of pregnancies that are aborted.
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Lrning: Gee, lets see… approximately 4.2 millions births, 1.2 million abortions, and 900,000 miscarriages in the U.S. each year. The abortions are “rare” and miscarriages are “a very common occurrence”. How does that work exactly?
It doesn’t “work” like that. How do we define “rare”? It’s obviously “rare” for one given woman to have an abortion in a given year, but it’s not that, in the context of the entire USA (for example) it’s “rare” for an abortion to be had.
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hippie: Basically you have some women who have one or several abortions, and the rest have zero. So, the group of women who abort is very much smaller than those who don’t. Closer to about 12% of women.
Holy Crow, that “12%” is not correct. As of now, it’s right about 30% of women who will have at least one abortion. Used to be 1 in 3, now it’s 3 in 10.
When it comes down to one given woman with an unwanted pregnancy, I don’t think our feelings of how “rare” or how “common” abortion is matter all that much.
Then I suppose people need to stop using that tired “safe, legal, and rare” rhetoric, don’t they?
I think the fact that sex-selection abortion is “common” is beginning to matter to many countries. Pro-choicers can continue to stick their heads in the sand and claim their “personal choice” doesn’t affect the world, or that it’s the woman’s choice that matters most, but they won’t be able to ignore forever the fact that a bunch of “individual choices” can eventually lead to some unforeseen consequences for society in general.
When it comes down to one given woman with an unwanted pregnancy, I don’t think our feelings of how “rare” or how “common” abortion is matter all that much.
Agreed. What matters most is protecting the child contained within that “unwanted pregnancy” and not allowing him/her to be sacrificed to the whims of his/her parent(s).
“it comes down to one given woman with an unwanted pregnancy, I don’t think our feelings of how “rare” or how “common” abortion is matter all that much.”
Then I suppose people need to stop using that tired “safe, legal, and rare” rhetoric, don’t they?
Kel, it’s two different things. People can say anything, whether they think the rate of abortion makes it “rare” or not. What, really, will that matter to the pregnant woman with an unwanted pregnancy?
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I think the fact that sex-selection abortion is “common” is beginning to matter to many countries. Pro-choicers can continue to stick their heads in the sand and claim their “personal choice” doesn’t affect the world, or that it’s the woman’s choice that matters most, but they won’t be able to ignore forever the fact that a bunch of “individual choices” can eventually lead to some unforeseen consequences for society in general.
Saying that the woman’s choice doesn’t matter the most is no given, either.
You’ve definitely got a point about sex-selection in that it’s resulting in imbalances in the numbers of males and females in some places. This will, to varying degrees, figure in to whether a society has a good enough reason to restrict or ban abortion. And – for all I know – some policy changes may result from it.
It’s not a simple, “one-way street,” however. In China, it was population pressure in the first place that led to such a demand for first-born males, since so many people were only going to have one kid. On “unforeseen consequences,” population pressure itself cannot be simple disregarded, and – were China to implement measures to change the male/female ratio, you might be plenty dissatisfied with them.
When it comes down to one given woman with an unwanted pregnancy, I don’t think our feelings of how “rare” or how “common” abortion is matter all that much.
Xalisae: Agreed. What matters most is protecting the child contained within that “unwanted pregnancy” and not allowing him/her to be sacrificed to the whims of his/her parent(s).
X, if you see a child being harmed, call a cop. My point was that we have to define, at the outset, what we are saying “rare” is, and go from there, and that either way with regard to the overall abortion rate in the US, it probably will not matter a hill of beans (so to speak) to the pregnant woman.
X, if you see a child being harmed, call a cop.
I tried, but they just told me that abortion made it legal to kill/harm children.
it probably will not matter a hill of beans (so to speak) to the pregnant woman.
And why does what matters to the pregnant woman matter a hill of beans, anyway? Pregnant women do not wish reality into being. They do not control the tilt of the Earth on its axis, the tides, the proximity of celestial bodies, the unemployment rate of their countries, or what the colors on stoplights mean. No matter if they would desire not to be pregnant or what have you, they have reproduced and carry a living human child-their child-within themselves. Allowing the killing of a child due to the circumstances of a parent is insanity.
Seriously. This has always boggled my mind about you. I have been pregnant. There wasn’t any sort of change in me at that time that should’ve propelled me from “regular old X” to some sort of castle lord with a hatchet man on-call. You have never been pregnant (I’m guessing), and I can only sit here and marvel at your ideas of WHY it seems in your mind pregnant women need to be placed on some mile-high pedestal giving them the legal authority to have their child executed when no other parent would have such legal recourse.
We don’t need to define “rare”. It’s already been defined:
rare?
adjective, rar·er, rar·est.
1. coming or occurring far apart in time; unusual; uncommon
Now you just need to hold abortion up to that definition and see if it fits.
* 3287 abortions/day, 137/hour, 2/second
* 19% of all pregnancies end in abortion each year
* 33% of U.S. women will have an abortion during her lifetime
Nope, not rare.
Holy Crow, that “12%” is not correct.”
Yes it is.
“As of now, it’s right about 30% of women who will have at least one abortion. Used to be 1 in 3, now it’s 3 in 10.”
Please tell us how you get 30%.
We know how many women there are, and we know how many abortions there are. So, there is no way to get to that 30% number given that half of all abortions are to women who have already had at least one abortion.
What, really, will that matter to the pregnant woman with an unwanted pregnancy?
Clearly, to the woman with an unwanted pregnancy who chooses abortion, she is what matters most. Not the world. Not her child. Just herself. The goddess has spoken, and she must be appeased.
Saying that the woman’s choice doesn’t matter the most is no given, either.
Pro-lifers accurately believe that the preborn child stands to lose the most in an abortion.
were China to implement measures to change the male/female ratio, you might be plenty dissatisfied with them.
Well, if you assume that China’s ONLY “solution” is yet another “final solution” in which male children are sought out and terminated simply for being male, then yes. I don’t happen to believe that killing off unwanted humans is a valid solution to anything.
Hey, cc, don’t you DARE slutshame your fellow women and then try to pin it on ME. Own it.
YOU own it.
“slutshame”
Is this a verb now? ;)
Holy Crow, that “12%” is not correct.”
hippie: Yes it is.
No, ’tain’t.
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“As of now, it’s right about 30% of women who will have at least one abortion. Used to be 1 in 3, now it’s 3 in 10.”
Please tell us how you get 30%.
Jones RK and Kavanaugh ML, “Changes in abortion rates between 2000 and 2008 and lifetime incidence of abortion” Obstetrics & Gynecology, 2011, 117(6):pp-pp.
Henshaw SK, “Unintended pregnancy in the United States.” Family Planning Perspectives, 1998, 30(1):24–29 & 46.
Right about 1 in 10 women will have an abortion by age 20. At age 30 it will be 1 in 4, and 3 in 10 at age 45. Used to be a higher rate than that.
The CDC and Guttmacher have mentioned the same thing.
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We know how many women there are, and we know how many abortions there are. So, there is no way to get to that 30% number given that half of all abortions are to women who have already had at least one abortion.
hippie, as stated, that makes no sense at all. Where in the world did your “12%” figure come from?
Yeah, we know how many women there are, and (pretty much) how many abortions there are. It works out to right at 2% of women having an abortion, per year, during the ~30 years of “childbearing age,” or 15 – 44. If no “overlap” as far as women having more than one abortion, then it’d be (obviously) roughly 60% of women who have abortions. To go from 60% to 30% allows for plenty of overlap – the women that have more than 1 abortions plus the ones that have more than 2, 3, etc.
“But the statistic that caught my eye, and led me to call abortion “rare” was this: In a given year, 2 percent of American women between the ages of 15 and 44 have an abortion. That means 98 percent of them do not.”
Del: Meanwhile, in Rosenthal’s own metropolis of New York City, 40% of pregnancies are terminated by abortion.
Rosenthal is either a liar or an idiot. (The evidence suggests that he is both.)
What does the 40% have to do with it? In no way does that disprove or stand at odds with what was already stated.
“X, if you see a child being harmed, call a cop.”
I tried, but they just told me that abortion made it legal to kill/harm children.
Somehow I doubt that.
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“it probably will not matter a hill of beans (so to speak) to the pregnant woman.”
And why does what matters to the pregnant woman matter a hill of beans, anyway?
I was comparing it to the debate over “rare” or not – the point being that the “rare” thing is comparatively not a big deal. If at the outset we define what we mean by “rare,” then while it’s rare for a given woman to have an abortion in a given year, it’s also true that overall abortion is not “rare” looking at the US as a whole, same as for breast cancer, for example.
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Pregnant women do not wish reality into being. They do not control the tilt of the Earth on its axis, the tides, the proximity of celestial bodies, the unemployment rate of their countries, or what the colors on stoplights mean.
Sure – those are matters of physical reality.
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No matter if they would desire not to be pregnant or what have you, they have reproduced and carry a living human child-their child-within themselves. Allowing the killing of a child due to the circumstances of a parent is insanity.
Now you’ve switched to your own subjective take on things and your opinon.
Lrning: We don’t need to define “rare”. It’s already been defined:
rare
adjective, rar·er, rar·est.
1. coming or occurring far apart in time; unusual; uncommon
Now you just need to hold abortion up to that definition and see if it fits.
* 3287 abortions/day, 137/hour, 2/second
* 19% of all pregnancies end in abortion each year
* 33% of U.S. women will have an abortion during her lifetime
Nope, not rare.
Still depends on how you look at it, Lrning. On the poll, I see that 2.1% of respondents say that Romney will be the next candidate to drop out.
First of all, are they CRAZY? What are they thinking? Good grief…. ;)
Anyway, that’s right about 1 in 50 people, so on average you’d have to go through 50 people before finding 1, i.e. coming or occurring far apart. No, from that we can’t say it’s “rare” per se, to find somebody (apparently) who thinks Romney is the next one to go, but in the context of the avrerage person it indeed is rare, same as for a person having an abortion in a given year.
Seriously. This has always boggled my mind about you. I have been pregnant. There wasn’t any sort of change in me at that time that should’ve propelled me from “regular old X” to some sort of castle lord with a hatchet man on-call. You have never been pregnant (I’m guessing), and I can only sit here and marvel at your ideas of WHY it seems in your mind pregnant women need to be placed on some mile-high pedestal giving them the legal authority to have their child executed when no other parent would have such legal recourse.
X, you’re right – no pregnancies here. Nobody is saying there was any “big change” in you as far as a lordship or the like. It’s not any change like that in any pregnant woman – it’s just them choosing one way or another, the same as we make almost all our decisions per our desire, without interference or proscriptions from the state, from society.
Sure, society has lots of laws, policies, etc. The fact remains that we are much less regulated than left free. How many things will we decide on in a given day? Thousands, at least. It’s comparatively quite rare to come up against society’s strictures, there.
“What, really, will that matter to the pregnant woman with an unwanted pregnancy?”
Kel: Clearly, to the woman with an unwanted pregnancy who chooses abortion, she is what matters most. Not the world. Not her child. Just herself. The goddess has spoken, and she must be appeased.
Take out the rhetoric and what remains is the fact that by far – most of our choices are made on a free basis, without society saying yea or nay. Should pro-lifers be the “goddess” and be able to tell the pregnant woman what to do? I say no.
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“were China to implement measures to change the male/female ratio, you might be plenty dissatisfied with them.”
Well, if you assume that China’s ONLY “solution” is yet another “final solution” in which male children are sought out and terminated simply for being male, then yes. I don’t happen to believe that killing off unwanted humans is a valid solution to anything.
That’s not the only way we get to “yes,” there.
I don’t know what China is going to do. Between population pressure and the existing culture in many countries, there are things that I too disagree with, don’t like, etc. But just blindly saying “abortion is bad” isn’t going to help, necessarily.
“Still depends on how you look at it, Lrning.”
I’m looking at it like a rational person. Please join me. Look at all the statistics instead of the one that suits your agenda Doug. There is no way a rational person can say that a procedure that happens twice every second of every day of the year is “rare”.
INCIDENCE OF ABORTION
• Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion.
• Each year, two percent of women aged 15–44 have an abortion. Half have had at least one previous abortion.
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
Take out the rhetoric and what remains is the fact that by far – most of our choices are made on a free basis, without society saying yea or nay. Should pro-lifers be the “goddess” and be able to tell the pregnant woman what to do? I say no.
Oh, yes, I know. How dare we ask mothers not to kill their children. I mean, that’s a moral judgment, after all, and we can’t have that, since morals are always totally subjective to the will of the people and all. If these moral lines are so arbitrary, why not kill them after birth, Doug?
Oh, wait, I forgot. Your “personal line” is at “Doug’s line of viability,” wherever that is. So, up to a certain point, it’s ok to kill them, but past a certain point, not so much.
Doug, your incredibly glib attitude about China is really disgusting. There are women who live there, and who are without a choice. For someone who claims to advocate that the woman should be free to make her own choices, you sure have a strange way of showing it in that case.
China already knows abortion – at least forced abortion – is bad. This is why at the highest levels, they say they’re not pulling Gestapo tactics on the populace, but the people report the exact opposite. This is why they silence dissidents.
I’m beginning to think there are trolls here who literally follow Doug’s posts around and “like” them within about a minute of their posting. That doesn’t happen with anyone else’s posts – not even other pro-choicers – so I’m starting to think somebody’s hacking the app. How fun and constructive. I wonder if your little “like” groupies know you draw the line at viability…. I’m sure they’re just absolutely crushed to hear that.
Unless, of course, you’ve changed your definition of viability today to mean… well, whatever you’ve decided “viability” means today.
most of our choices are made on a free basis, without society saying yea or nay.
Oh, and FYI, “most of our choices” don’t involve the destruction of another human life. This is where you’re clueless and morally bankrupt, dude. Because you don’t see the difference between killing one’s offspring and deciding on which brand of beer you want to drink.
“The government should regulate as few of our choices as possible, that’s why killing children in utero should be legal.”
Perfectly rational. Yup.
I’m looking at it like a rational person. Please join me. Look at all the statistics instead of the one that suits your agenda Doug. There is no way a rational person can say that a procedure that happens twice every second of every day of the year is “rare”.
Lrning – there *is* a difference. Is it rare for a given woman to have an abortion in a given year, a given month, a given week, a given day? Yeah, it’s getting pretty darn rare, there.
Is something rare that occurs twice every second in a country. No.
Depends on what you’re looking at. It’s not “my agenda” to pick any certain deal, here. It’s just that all the hoopla, without actually saying what we are going with, as far as “rare,” is silly.
X: “The government should regulate as few of our choices as possible, that’s why killing children in utero should be legal.”
Perfectly rational. Yup.
X, it’s not rational to take one side of the debate, and then inject your own subjective take on things – your beliefs, your preference in terminology, etc., onto it.
Doug, your incredibly glib attitude about China is really disgusting. There are women who live there, and who are without a choice. For someone who claims to advocate that the woman should be free to make her own choices, you sure have a strange way of showing it in that case.
Kel, I’m not “glib” about China. Things really suck there, in quite a few ways. I’m not saying that “China has been right,” nor that they will be in the future.
“most of our choices are made on a free basis, without society saying yea or nay”
Oh, and FYI, “most of our choices” don’t involve the destruction of another human life.
Nobody said they did, Kel. But some of them do, and what I said above, while it doesn’t apply to that in the exact same way, still operates.
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This is where you’re clueless and morally bankrupt, dude. Because you don’t see the difference between killing one’s offspring and deciding on which brand of beer you want to drink.
That’s silly. I never said anything to that effect. Anybody could as well say that you’re morally bankrupt for not putting the pregnant woman’s wishes ahead of your own.
preference in terminology
Only in a world where “preference in terminology” matters one iota in the facts of the matter of what is actually transpiring do you seem like a rational person, Doug. SPOILER: That world ain’t this one.
Ex-GOP: The 1% figure is wrong – which I wouldn’t care about, except this site has used the exact same argument before and it was pointed out that the figure it wrong.
To be in the top 1%, you need to make about $388,800 a year.
Furthermore, it isn’t what Obama calls the top 1%, it is what math calls the top 1%. It isn’t as if Obama could answer what 2+2 is, and then people should go around saying “well, the Obama administration says the answer is 4?. The answer IS 4. And the top 1% IS almost $400K, which again, was pointed out on this site just a little bit back.
Pretty much a mathematical free-for-all here today, Ex-GOP. ;) :)
Really, 2.2% think Romney’s the next one out? :P
“preference in terminology”
X: Only in a world where “preference in terminology” matters one iota in the facts of the matter of what is actually transpiring do you seem like a rational person, Doug. SPOILER: That world ain’t this one.
Then let’s stick to the facts, rather than insisting on a subjective spin on things, X.
Kel: I’m beginning to think there are trolls here who literally follow Doug’s posts around and “like” them within about a minute of their posting. That doesn’t happen with anyone else’s posts – not even other pro-choicers – so I’m starting to think somebody’s hacking the app. How fun and constructive. I wonder if your little “like” groupies know you draw the line at viability…. I’m sure they’re just absolutely crushed to hear that.
Kel, you’ve gone on about “likes” before. Makes me think of this thread:
http://www.jillstanek.com/2012/01/final-updatey-ask-them-what-they-mean-by-choice-day/#comments
“What do they mean by the choice?” CC says, “Choice to carry a pregnancy to term or have a legal abortion. D’uh.”
She ends up getting 36 likes.
Is it some dire “conspiracy,” or perhaps did she just give a straightforward (and obvious) answer?
On drawing the line at viability – I don’t say that’s the end-all of the debate, not even for me, personally. Certainly willing to talk about it, with anyone, pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike. Aside from “viability” or not, I think earlier abortions are preferable to later ones, and preventing unwanted pregnancies would be better yet.
“Is it rare for a given woman to have an abortion in a given year, a given month, a given week, a given day? Yeah, it’s getting pretty darn rare, there.”
How is that a meaningful statistic? It’s not. Why are you working so hard to find a way that the word “rare” can be used in conjunction with abortion? Every 20 seconds an American has a heart attack. Are heart attacks “rare” Doug? They are recognized as the #1 killer of both men and women in the U.S. But they must be “rare” because any given person has a small chance of having a heart attack “ in a given year, a given month, a given week, a given day”. How nonsensical.
Doug,
Nah, I just think its funny because you could have a post saying you picked your nose and someone would “like” it within a minute flat. It’s just hilarious. You must have stealthy (and quick responding) groupies who see the name “Doug” and automatically click “like.” in fact, I’ve seen a post or two of yours in the past which were really about nothing in particular, and within a minute, they had a “like” or two. I don’t see it happen with anyone else’s posts in quite the same way. :D Face it, Doug, you have web groupies!
Really, Doug? I would be morally bankrupt for refusing to ignore the growing life inside the woman, pretending it doesn’t exist?
Morally bankrupt for saying, “Hey, maybe you should consider that there is an innocent life growing in you who is there through no fault of his own”?
Morally bankrupt for helping a woman to find resources so that both she and her children can have a chance at life without anyone having to die?
Yeah, sure. Thanks for the chuckle, Doug.
Doug (5:28 pm) ,
You don’t consider a pregnancy “a physical reality”? And that to say a pregnant woman has reproduced and is carrying a living human child is subjective?
You abortion fundamentalists are a strange lot. You live by fundamentals that are as solid as Jell-o.
Kel, just for the record: I’m a Corona Light girl myself, especially if you’ve got a lime and a knife! I am definitely pro-choice when it comes to beer.
Doug, I’m sick of you. Let me tell you why. You always try to make the point it is MY (prolifers) preference I want to impose over the pregnant mom’s preference (kill or not to kill). That is where you continue your stupid argument about society’s rules and laws and what we want on any given day. Hans calls it Jell-0. I concur.
NO. It is not my preference that the child lives by which I base my prolife argument; rather, it is me (or we) acting as a voice for a human being who does not have one. The unborn cannot speak, so I speak for them, just as I would be an ombudsman for a child in a coma or on life support. You do not like it when I say “That baby wants to live” so I will say “That baby is trying to live.” I insist, he is: everything about the developing fetus is articulating, not in so many words, that he is striving for a life outside his mom. EVERYTHING. If things don’t go as planned, then he will die and the mom will miscarry. But as long as those babies have you and your minions clamoring for their right to be killed, I will speak for them. It is not my will–it is the preference of the baby to live. Can you imagine asking a small child, after they have learned to speak: “Do you wish your mom had killed you before you were born, or are you glad you had a chance to see what this whole world is about?”
Of course not. I am DONE with you and your semantics and your wiggling.
“Is it rare for a given woman to have an abortion in a given year, a given month, a given week, a given day? Yeah, it’s getting pretty darn rare, there.”
Lrning: How is that a meaningful statistic? It’s not.
It’s as meaningful as anything else, there – at least the context is stated.
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Why are you working so hard to find a way that the word “rare” can be used in conjunction with abortion? Every 20 seconds an American has a heart attack. Are heart attacks “rare” Doug? They are recognized as the #1 killer of both men and women in the U.S. But they must be “rare” because any given person has a small chance of having a heart attack “ in a given year, a given month, a given week, a given day”. How nonsensical.
It’s not nonsensical and it’s not hard work – the point remains that the context matters. If we state a rate of incidence, at the outset, and say that below that rate is “rare” and above it is not, then fine. Yet again – if we are stating things as, “Is it rare for an abortion to occur in the United States?” then the answer is no. What rate would satisfy you as far as it qualifying for “rare”?
The same for heart attacks. Sure, a lot of heart attacks happen. However, thank goodness that they’re as rare as they are. A lot of people never have them.
The odds on a safety being the first points scored in the Super Bowl were given as 50 to 1, same as our 2% chance of a woman of childbearing years having an abortion in a given year. You better believe it’s rare for a safety to be the first points on the board.
Kel: Nah, I just think its funny because you could have a post saying you picked your nose and someone would “like” it within a minute flat. It’s just hilarious. You must have stealthy (and quick responding) groupies who see the name “Doug” and automatically click “like.” in fact, I’ve seen a post or two of yours in the past which were really about nothing in particular, and within a minute, they had a “like” or two. I don’t see it happen with anyone else’s posts in quite the same way. Face it, Doug, you have web groupies!
;) Well, “groupies” or not, quite a few posts in this thread had zero votes after 14 or 15 hours…
If nothing else, I try to go with what is true for all of us, rather than just what my opinion is or what the opinion of a certain group is. Also, things like the percentage of women that have abortions goes to “hard numbers” (pretty much) and thus we can arrive at a conclusion – hopefully – of such arguments, and that’s attractive to a lot of people, IMO, rather than just the continual re-stating of opinion, here and there.
Kel: Really, Doug? I would be morally bankrupt for refusing to ignore the growing life inside the woman, pretending it doesn’t exist? Morally bankrupt for saying, “Hey, maybe you should consider that there is an innocent life growing in you who is there through no fault of his own”? Morally bankrupt for helping a woman to find resources so that both she and her children can have a chance at life without anyone having to die?
No, Kel, you wouldn’t be, and the point is that pro-choicers are not either, it’s just that they disagree with you on some things.
You don’t consider a pregnancy “a physical reality”?
No, Hans, and that was not what was said. (Of course a pregnancy is physical reality.)
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And that to say a pregnant woman has reproduced and is carrying a living human child is subjective?
It’s the “child” part that is subjective.
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You abortion fundamentalists are a strange lot. You live by fundamentals that are as solid as Jell-o.
All that’s there is that you’re lumping the subjective in with some objective things and then acting as if nothing there can be subjective. A bowl of Jell-O is physical reality (and according to the standards of some pro-lifers, it has brain waves! ;) ) That’s not the same as one’s subjective take on the bowl of Jell-O.
“Is it rare for an abortion to occur in the United States?” then the answer is no.
Thank you for finally admitting it.
Doug, I’m sick of you. Let me tell you why. You always try to make the point it is MY (prolifers) preference I want to impose over the pregnant mom’s preference (kill or not to kill). That is where you continue your stupid argument about society’s rules and laws and what we want on any given day. Hans calls it Jell-0. I concur.
Courtnay, Hans was mistaken. And morality really is about valuations and preferences and desires.
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NO. It is not my preference that the child lives by which I base my prolife argument; rather, it is me (or we) acting as a voice for a human being who does not have one. The unborn cannot speak, so I speak for them, just as I would be an ombudsman for a child in a coma or on life support.
In the case of the unborn, there is no desire to speak, in the first place. You can personify the unborn and say that “you’re speaking for them,” sure – and you could do the same for anything with no awareness, for that matter. The bottom line remains that you prefer that the unborn live, versus having the woman legally free to choose to have an abortion. All the “shoulds” and “should nots” are coming from you, there.
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You do not like it when I say “That baby wants to live” so I will say “That baby is trying to live.” I insist, he is: everything about the developing fetus is articulating, not in so many words, that he is striving for a life outside his mom. EVERYTHING. If things don’t go as planned, then he will die and the mom will miscarry.
Hey – you can say that the baby is performing calculus and theoretical physics in the womb – it won’t bother me much. Still, either there is consciousness or not, and if not then there’s no will at work, no volition related to any awareness. It’s not that miscarriages result from “babies wanting to die” and it’s not that most pregnancies continue due to “babies wanting to live.” It’s that in that case the biological processes tend to continue.
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But as long as those babies have you and your minions clamoring for their right to be killed, I will speak for them. It is not my will–it is the preference of the baby to live. Can you imagine asking a small child, after they have learned to speak: “Do you wish your mom had killed you before you were born, or are you glad you had a chance to see what this whole world is about?”
You’re confusing conscious entities with others where none is present. “Clamoring for their right to be killed”? Come on, who says that? Who asserts any such thing? Not me, and not pro-choicers.
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Of course not. I am DONE with you and your semantics and your wiggling.
No “wiggling,” and if there’s a semantic argument here – it’d be saying, “abortion is wrong because it’s a baby,” etc. I don’t do that, and in fact preach against it – it’s not a meaningful argument.
“Is it rare for an abortion to occur in the United States?” then the answer is no.
Lrning: Thank you for finally admitting it.
:: chuckling :: You’re welcome. I started the thread asking how we are to look at it.