Stanek weekend question: Women get abortions every day, so it’s okay?
Cortney O’Brien at Townhall.com shares yet another attempt to de-stigmatize child killing with the claim that abortion is no big deal, it’s just another choice:
The Irish Family Planning Association… along with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (surprise), recently released a video called, “Women Have Abortions Every Day: It’s Just One Choice,” suggesting an abortion is as normal as opening a business, going to school, or even getting your tonsils out:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4SSHkgD73E[/youtube]
The video also implies women cannot achieve success unless they abort untimely children.
Do you think the “C’mon, everybody’s doing it” line works?
[HT: Kelli]

Stigma of abortion doesn’t come from pro-life movement, or politics, or people’s ignorance. It comes from intrinsic knowledge every woman has when they’re pregnant, that what they’re carrying is a child and that that child is destroyed during an abortion. Even thousands of anti-abortion-stigma videos won’t change that. Unless they find a way to make the woman un-pregnant without destroying a child in the process…
Insane video.
The reality is women have abortions everyday.
The reality is women and children are beat and raped everyday too. Let’s make a stupid video in attempts to make violence against women and children seem normal.
Some choices are trivial, and some choices are important, and some choices are eternal. It is the height of hubris to equate decisions like which college to attend with the decision to kill a child.
Children are rarely planned or chosen. Children are almost always a surprise, and life’s greatest surprise in a life that is full of surprises. The Culture of Death’s greatest victory happened when they managed to get our culture to value “choice” and “planned” above “joy” and “surprise.”
So now we are encouraged to kill joy just to avoid surprises.
A third of Americans get arrested by the time they’re 23. Is that normal too?
What a transparent piece of propaganda designed to trivialize an issue of major importance, and mainstream a practice that can never be mainstreamed. Abortion is just like going to the dentist, done without a qualm, it says. But that contrasts very starkly indeed with the stories we hear from real women who’ve had abortions, and from women who were tempted to abort, but who decided to keep their babies.
bm [barry & moochelle] happens every day, “It’s just one choice.”
Actually I feel much better if it happens at least twice a day.
If I miss a day then I lose my sense of humor and start behaving like a democRAT who has run out of other people’s money.
If there is nothing inherently wrong with ‘abortion’ and it ‘is just another choice’, then why does the boRAT and all her toxy-morons claim that she wants less of them?
Ya, all kinds of killing happens every day. Get in line.
Praxedes, those lefties are working to make sex with children seem normal too.
pharmer, why ya gotta be such a hater? You’re not very tolerant of those who want to have sex with children. Don’t you believe in Freedom of Choice?
Many people make bad choices every day.
Numbers and frequency do not make bad choices into good choices.
What a wonderful video. This video sums up the prochoice attitude. Its one little thing in life, just like tonsillectomy. People should just get over it.
Its the legalization of this procedure that gives them that green light to go ahead and make it seem like we should all just jump on the bandwagon and accept choice. This is where pro lifers step in and say no no no!!! Why? Because behind their happy music we have seen the pictures of Gosnells terminated pregnancies. We have seen the shoddy mills and the rising death toll of women injured by abortion. Abortion will never ever be acceptable to me.
And sure the ladies in this video are probably actresses but they arent going to show you the women crying with regret. Some women do seem content with their choice to abort but id say the majority do not.
People sell drugs every day so its okay right?
People have this notion that everything must go in a proper order. Education marriage house cars vacations good jobs THEN kids when YOU want to be bothered. If not just abort. Abortion….dumbing down America for 41 years!
heather, its called family planning. Most people try to do it using birth control when that fails then abortion is an option. Women should be able to plan their life. If a man was to be bothered by carrying a life in him, abortion would be a nonissue. A man would abort 50 times over what a woman would.
Steven…Bulls***!
lol nice comeback!
The timelines left off an awful lot.
How about “drank to try and forget abortion and went into rehab. . . broke up with aborted baby’s father because neither of us could stand the guilt. . . went into therapy . . . had years of bad relationships. . . had to be treated for breast cancer . . . ”
Because things like that happen every day to women who have abortions.
Do you believe men should be able kill their unborn children too as long as it doesn’t harm the mother?
The premise of family planning does not involve aborting your own offspring. There is no family planning if abortion is involved. This term when used by pro-aborts is simply an oxymoron. Logic 101 Steven. In other words, the conclusion you are proposing is non-sequitur…
Steven,
It distresses me whenever a man is fine with abortion. It upsets me as a woman, a wife, and a mother. Please do some soul searching and rethink your position.
Mother in Texico, you must be distressed an awful lot…I know men who prayed for their girlfriends to have an abortion. I even know other men who will not sleep with a girl if she is has views against abortion….because he knows if they accidentally get pregnant his life is ruined! Abortion saves men and women from raising children they don’t want! Thank god for abortion!
“had to be treated for breast cancer . . . ”
-Lori Pieper, this is not true.
So Steven is okay with using women for sexual gratification and throwing them in the garbage. Thats a coward.
Steven,
Answer the question I posed above. “Do you believe men should be able have their unborn children killed as long as it doesn’t harm the mother?”
I even know other men who will not sleep with a girl if she is has views against abortion
This is great! I’ve always said that prolifers need to be with prolifers and proaborts should be with proaborts. Now talk yourself and your other proabort friends into telling the truth and only having sex with others who love abortion like you do.
It doesn’t surprise me that proaborts are liars though. My ex was prolife until the actual baby was involved.
Steven, maybe start up a dating (hookup) service for proaborts. Only proaborts can become members and that way they can stay busy among themselves and stop lying to the rest of us.
They could name the dating site “bitchesagainstbabies”
It is a part of the liberal mindset that they get their comfort in numbers. It is sad but true that their conscience is formed by whether or not they have other people ok with doing it.
I completely agree with prax, prochoice people can live together in harmony in a place called america, and antichoice people can go elsewhere….we can just separate and you guys can have a terrible place where the state tells you what to do and we can have a free society where women can plan their families. Great idea praxy!
Truthseeker, the answer to your question. It doesn’t matter what I think because that situation is already illegal. Im ok with it being illegal.
prochoice people can live together in harmony
LOL. If that was the case, you wouldn’t be here trolling prolifers, Stevie boy! Go live in harmony on some other blog with your fellow abortion lovers!
Praxie daxie, Im not trolling. Im learning, remember “know thy enemy”. I watch fox news for the same reason….and I do live with prochoice people on other blogs….but I enjoy listening to the bafoonery on this blog also. :)
bitchesagainstbabies….sign me up….
Babies are Stevie’s enemy. What a tough boy/man.
Thanks I am pretty tough. ;) Especially to write the truth on a site that basically has nothing but lies and likeminded people crying about nonproblems…
“Im ok with it being illegal.”
Steven, I thought you wanted a free society. Why should men have to be punished and have their lives ruined with babies?
Seeker of truth, I don’t care about babies. I care about the rights of women. If a baby is born and the dad doesn’t want it, he wouldn’t kill it, he would just leave it to the mother. In that situation a man isn’t punished a women is and the child suffers without a dad. Even more reason to abort.
Prax ppl do change. When I met my ex husband, who is a jerk, he was proabort. Over the years I converted him. He’s still a jerk but at least he is a prolife jerk.
He’s still a jerk but at least he is a prolife jerk.
–Nuff said, everyone who is a prolife is a jerk. Ha!
What a bizarre discussion.
Steven – science says that life begins at conception. This includes embryology textbooks, what we were all taught in middle school, etc.
You either believe it is OK to end a living human being’s life before it is born, or you have a disagreement with science.
Which is it?
Pharmer why do you think sex with children is becoming acceptable ? The very thought makes me ill
Have none of you borts heard of adoption? They take place every day. Seriously.
“Pharmer why do you think sex with children is becoming acceptable ? The very thought makes me ill”
There’s a TON of pedophilia apologism, it’s disgusting. They say adult/child sex is natural and children are completely capable of consent and the only reason people are damage from being raped as a child is because society shames them. I don’t know about “more acceptable” but I have seen a lot more “edgy” pedophilia apologists in the last couple years.
“If a baby is born and the dad doesn’t want it, he wouldn’t kill it, he would just leave it to the mother. In that situation a man isn’t punished a women is and the child suffers without a dad. Even more reason to abort. ”
Women already had a way to deal with that situation, it’s called adoption or single parenting. There’s no need to kill any babies to keep women from being single parents. And being a single parent is not a “punishment” anyway, it sucks but you can deal with it and your kids make it worth it.
And you know, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that men could be held equally responsible for their kids well-being. “Some dudes abandon their kids, maybe that means that women should be allowed to kill the abandoned kids! That will fix the problem with fatherhood in this country.”. What kind of solution is that?
“In that situation a man isn’t punished”
Steven, The man then has to spend his life being responsible for the finances of the child and also the abuse the child goes through because they have no dad looking out for them. It seems you are willing to exchange your freedom for sex.
Seeker of truth, I don’t care about babies. I agree with you there Steven. You don’t care about babies.
I care about the rights of women… In that situation a man isn’t punished a women is. Huh? Are you a masochist? How is punishing a woman caring about her rights?
It’s not “Women get abortions every day, so it’s OK.”, it’s “Women get abortions every day, because it’s OK.”
The reality is women and children are beat and raped everyday too. – that’s a very poor comparison. A more accurate one would be ‘the reality is that women open bank accounts every day’.
It doesn’t surprise me that proaborts are liars though. My ex was prolife until the actual baby was involved. – I think you’ve got that round the wrong way. Many anti-choicers show they are aren’t really when an unwanted pregnancy is involved.
Safe, legal and rare women’s bank accounts. Genius.
Safe, legal and rare beatings and rape. Genius.
Abortion is legalized mutilation of women and legalized killing of children. Genius? Most would say no. Steven and Reality would say yes. Steven and Reality are neanderthals.
Abortion is legalized mutilation of women and legalized killing of children. – no, it’s not.
Most would say no. – yet the majority say yes in some or all circumstances.
Steven and Reality would say yes. – yes. Yes to womens freedom and rights!
Steven and Reality are neanderthals. – no, that’s people like rick perry and co.
Don’t feed the trolls.
It is sad but many a Democrat are able to convince themselves it is ok to tear babies from the womb in bloody pieces as long as it is done often.
It’s OK JDC, I don’t mind clarifying things for them :-)
Reality. Clarify for me one more time why it is that tearing children from their mother’s womb in bloody pieces does not kill a human being?
Why are you asking me truthseeker? How many times do I have to repeat that abortion kills a gestating fetus of the human species.
Thanks JDC.
What’s wrong with this Planned Parenthood video?: 4 dykie looking women all claiming they had abortions & looking very joyous over it. & for added effect, 1 is even carrying a baby. OOH, I’M CONVINCED NOW! They should be charged with fraud. Feminist=masculinist.
”4 dykie looking women all claiming they had abortions & looking very joyous over it.”
I don’t think slurs are necessary to make your point, and I think bashing the way someone looks is a cheap shot and doesn’t make anyone see your point.
Notice how the women in the video had an abortion after sex education and birth control? Yet, Planned Parenthood claims access to those prevent abortions.
“Killing a gestating fetus of the human species.” Yeah, that makes it much more palatable. Not!
We are still talking about the same reality.
Lesbians are probably the least likely to have abortions.
You think that no sex-ed and no access to contraception would prevent abortions MoJoanne?
My words were accurate and clear MoJoanne, truthseeker’s were emotive and unclear.
Steven,
It’s Mother In TEXAS or MIT (if you want to use initials) NOT Texico. I’m NOT a gas station (particularly one that I don’t think exists in very many places anymore–I haven’t seen a Texico in ages). If I can pay you the respect of getting your moniker right, you can do the very same for me.
And yes, I do get distressed a lot because abortion is the ending of an innocent human being’s life. A being who’s only so-called crime is having been conceived. Which isn’t even the human being’s fault, all that human did was follow the natural order of biology (human egg + human sperm = new human being). (Lucky for me, my husband is very pro-life and a wonderful father and husband, very blessed to be married to him).
As to the rest of your comments:
A guy breaks up with a girl because she’s unwilling to have an abortion? I thought pro-choicers were about women being allowed to do whatever the heck she wanted? This doesn’t sound like any pro-choicer I’ve ever come across. Sounds more like the guy is pro-abortion.
I understand having a child can be intimidating. However, it’s NOT about being nervous and it’s not about whether or not you’re “ready” (even a couple who think they are ready can experience moments of doubt–it’s a big responsibility, but it doesn’t mean you shirk the responsibility just because it’s “inconvenient”) Even though the courts have deemed it legal to willfully end the life of an in-uteral human being, it doesn’t make it RIGHT. Life isn’t always about convenience. Life isn’t always fair. Life isn’t always hearts and flowers.
If a couple truly can’t care for their child, there’s always adoption. I know people who have placed their children for adoption when they couldn’t care for them. I also know several people who are adopted, and I’m very blessed to know them.
P.S. God has a capital “G” in His Name, unless you’re talking about someone other than the Jewish/Christian God. In which case, I’d have to ask you which one since there’s so many.
I see you cannot argue with anyone who does not see (or refuses to acknowledge) the simple premise that family planning is about life and not aborting. “reality” and Steven fall into that category. The more accurate term would be family unplanning. Right Steven? Maybe instead of Logic 101, I can propose remedial Logic 99…
Eh…im betting Steven is a post abortive woman.
Besides stop with the….If men could get pregnant mess. They cannot. It is not possible. Besides if men were able to get pregnant and have abortions nothing would change. Abortion would still be murder. Men would suffer. Never met a pro deather who could argue a logical point.
Well if pigs could fly…..
Mommy in Tejas, I don’t care if you get my moniker right you can call me whatever your heart desires. For one, I did not say that a man would break up with a women if she was antichoice I said that he would not sleep with her. Even if a man did break up with a women…he’s proabortion…So what? Its his right to be with whomever he chooses. And yes, life isnt fair or convenient but abortion makes it a little bit more accommodation for someone to plan their own life. As far as adoption goes, carrying a pregnancy to term is the most dangerous thing a woman can do in her lifetime. Much much much more dangerous than having a first or early second trimester abortion. Also, I can spell god however I wish. Thanks!
Tommy R, family unplanning?….wow did you stay up all night thinking of that one? Sure call it what you want but the fact is that if a woman has an unwanted pregnancy and it is not part of her life plan she has the option to get rid of it. Sounds like planning to me…
Heathy, I can pose whatever situation I want to. If men could get pregnant, they would abort abort abort! Men kill each other in war everyday, I hardly think some tiny speck of cells in their body would be even given a second thought. Especially if it got in the way of their life plans….Also Im not a prochoice woman, but thanks for the compliment. ;)
Here’s something I want to share with you Steven. You are a proponent of demeaning others’ proper names and throw some of what you consider insults hoping that will stick simply because you have no valid way to rationalize your arguments. Since you started commenting, your “insults” have become more personal. Is that a sign that you are getting frustrated?
Now, I truly think you need some heavy duty remedial logic lessons due to using “unwanted pregnancy” in a sentence. Sit on this one a long minutes Stevie…
I hate to say it but you need to take a page from “reality” as something tells me he is a little better at this than you may ever be.
Tommy tommy tommy, relax man. What insults have I personalized? I am just stating my arguments. Ok unwanted pregnancy…..*one long minute later*…..hmmm duhhhhhhhhh I dont know…..PING wait…..now i get it….it all makes sense now…..thank you so much Tommy youre such a good person! Im anti choice now!….Im loving that I have got so under your skin so much that you are complimenting a fellow prochoicer! Ha! Now for sure Im stickin around!
Steven: I simply am pointing out to you that in order for you to present your arguments coherently, you may want to consider getting a refresher on logical thought (premises and all that). Your arguments are lost on majority because of your usage of oxymorons (you know – non-sequitur thought).
“reality” has been a long- time commenter here Stevie. He and I fundamentally disagree on the matter of this blog and other issues but your assumption that I should not acknowledge that the the way he presents his arguments is above you, is again a failure on your part to follow simple logic.
So stick around. As Del said – you are our guest and a guest you will remain.
Thanks Tommy, you’re a real sweetheart.
“Thanks JDC.”
You’re welcome, Praxedes.
Oh I know Steven. I will have many opportunities to discredit your thought process so get ready :)
Steven,
Spelling “God” wrong just because you can doesn’t do anything to promote your argument. Spelling something wrong doesn’t make it right.
Also, I haven’t needed abortion to be healthy. Neither has mother who gave birth 6 times and has a way better immune system than most women I know. In fact, she rarely ever gets sick and if she does, it’s usually minor or easily dealt with.
For everybody,
Why does anyone purposely get anyone’s moniker wrong? I get the frustration and sarcasm, but how does this help the conversation? I’m not trying to be rude, it’s just I’ve never liked it and since I’ve said something about it, I figure I might as well address it in the general sense. Even if we disagree with someone, let’s at least get the moniker right. We don’t have to be disrespectful to someone just because they’re disrespectful to us. How does that get us anywhere?
Like I said, I’m truly not trying to be rude…it’s just something I’ve noticed on and off and haven’t ever liked it. I guess I hadn’t addressed it because it hadn’t happened to me directly, but since it has, I’d say I should have said something a long time ago and I apologize that I didn’t.
I hope nobody takes this as me trying to insult them, because that’s not how it’s meant.
“Why does anyone purposely get anyone’s moniker wrong? ”
Generally to annoy the person they are commenting to, or be sarcastic (like people call Reality “Fantasy” which I think is amusing, no offense Reality, or a certain person calls truthseeker a variation of names because they don’t think he’s seeking truth). Or they just shorten them because they get annoyed typing it out a million times, I tend to do that. Don’t let it get to you.
“(like people call Reality “Fantasy””
To be fair in his case there is so much distance between his chosen moniker and his actual comments that it would seem wrong to call him by it.
Reality says: November 24, 2013 at 9:08 pm Why are you asking me truthseeker? How many times do I have to repeat that abortion kills a gestating fetus of the human species.
Why? Because this shows how blinded by the cult thinking you are.
In the early days, many pro-choice advocates simply acknowledged that the fetus was a human being, but argued that there were circumstances making it OK to kill the human.
As the movement progressed, people figured out it would be better to 1 refer to abortion euphemistically 2 develop some good blob-of-flesh and we-can’t-be-sure-when-life-starts rhetoric, and 3 keep the issue out of the public arena.
Pro-life forces, in these recent 6 years, have forced abortion back into the public arena.
There is some re-emergence of the idea on the pro-choice community that the fetus is alive, but that there are compelling circumstances that allow killing it, and so broad abortion access should be sustained.
The crux of the matter is that a four-week-old fetus is a human being, according to science. This is the scientific view regardless of which group decides to advocate for these disenfranchised people. The Marxist hate for Christianity does not change the four-week-old human into a “potential” life or a blob of flesh.
We pro-life people keep the focus on whether abortion is killing an actual human being because that is the correct issue to focus upon. You are free to throw out there the usual red herrings, but the fact is you have defined an entire new phase of the life cycle that is nowhere in any textbook just so you can sustain your political view.
But keep it up. “Steven” needs a role model to emulate, and needs a few good red herrings to throw out there, in lieu of name-calling.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OZH-mdbCXI
Abortion doc shares his view: yes, he knows he is killing.
Jack,
I don’t have a problem with people using initials of a moniker (like when people call me MIT–that doesn’t bother me because I know it’s the initials and I know that my moniker is long), or shorten the moniker because it’s long, it’s when people get it wrong intentionally for the reasons you mentioned that bother me. Like I said, I wasn’t trying to be rude or insult anyone, I just think it’s a form of disrespect and doesn’t do anything for any of the conversations on here.
The more accurate term would be family unplanning. – actually that term is more accurately applied to those who refuse to use contraception or, if necessary, abortion. Those who do use contraception and abortion are the ones whose families are planned.
You are a proponent of demeaning others’ proper names – oh yes? This coming from you?
Why does anyone purposely get anyone’s moniker wrong? – maybe kenthebirther or truthseeker could help you with that one.
As I said earlier TLD, My words were accurate and clear, truthseeker’s were emotive and unclear.
“Reality” – since the science textbooks have been re-written, can you inform the rest of us when life begins?
Some billions of years ago TLD, or are you a YEC?
You know very well that TLD is talking about when a new human life begins, Reality.
Steven,
FYI: there is another reader and sometimes poster on this blog that goes by the name “Tommy R”.
clarity or whatever
OK, Steven, take notes. If you are as youthful as your posting style suggests, then the term “red herring” may not be known to you. Check it out on Google.
Thomas R: Now, I truly think you need some heavy duty remedial logic lessons due to using “unwanted pregnancy” in a sentence. Sit on this one a long minutes Stevie…
No, the errors here are clearly not on Steven’s part. Not every pregnancy is wanted. The lack of logic would be in trying to somehow maintain that that is not true.
Short of being physically compelled otherwise, if a pregnancy is wanted, on balance, then it will be continued. If not, it will be ended.
Of abortions in the US, a significant portion are involving women that to that point describe themselves as “pro-life” (and there, as “fundamentalist Christian” or the like, often). They have that as a general opinion, but in a given situation, they may not want to be pregnant, and elect to end the pregnancy.
“You are a proponent of demeaning others’ proper names – oh yes? This coming from you?”
Oh for the love of Pete (I hope your name is not Pete, really) “reality.” Your moniker is not a proper name thus the reason I enclose it in parenthesis. If you used your first name I would not do so. Is it me or are you getting a little rusty??
You’re a bit of an assumptive person sometimes “thomas r.”. A little presumptive sometimes too. :-)
I’d ask if the ‘r’ in your name stands for ‘rusty’ but from what you say “thomas r.” must be your proper name ;-)
Doug: “…Not every pregnancy is wanted. The lack of logic would be in trying to somehow maintain that that is not true.”
The logical fallacy in this oxymoron stems from engaging in intercourse fully aware of the possible outcome, thus when a pregnancy occurs the “unwanted” becomes meaningless.
Premise (I don’t want a pregnancy), action (I have inconsequential sex), outcome (I become pregnant), conclusion (I conceived fully aware that engaging in inconsequential sex may make it so). So in other words, the awareness of this possible consequence makes these two words incompatible in a sentence.
“reality:” You must have forgotten that I disclosed my last name on this blog two or three times. If so you may easily peruse threads going back to June (that’s when I joined) and find those comments posted under my full proper name.
I am who I am “reality” but you know, the best part of being me is being life-affirming. I can live with all my other shortcomings just fine. :)
So Thomas R., you hop into your car, which you maintain in a fully serviceable and safe condition, put on your seatbelt, smile at the airbag symbol in front of you, check the warning lights for anti-lock brakes, traction control, stability control etc., fire up the car and drive as safely as possible. For a myriad of possible reasons you have an accident. Was it ‘unwanted’, or is that meaningless?
I remember you doing so once but I don’t remember what it is, nor do I need to. But your moniker is not a ‘proper name’ now is it.
And as I said, you have been both assumptive and presumptive.
I too am a positively life-affirming person. I too am quite comfortable with who I am, but I consider it valuable that we work on our shortcomings.
Thomas, that’s like saying that damage to a vehicle is not unwanted, just because the drivers knew that accidents are possible.
If there is illogic here, that would be it.
There are often no guarantees that actions will not lead to unwanted situations. While it would often be illogical to say that “having sex cannot lead to being pregnant,” it’s not illogical to say that “sex can lead to unwanted pregnancies,” just as it’s not to say that, “sex can lead to wanted pregnancies.”
Some pregnancies are planned, some are unplanned. Some are wanted, some are unwanted.
Some pregnancies are planned, some are unplanned. Some are wanted, some are unwanted.
Some men are poor, some are rich. Some are smart, some are proaborts.
That’s a bit meaningless Praxedes.
It should be:
Some men are poor, some are rich. Some are smart, some are dumb. Some are anti-choice, some are pro-choice.
You need to include all the parameters, not just some.
Praxedes says: Some pregnancies are planned, some are unplanned. Some are wanted, some are unwanted.
I’ve seen the terms “Intended” and “Unintended” lately, rather than “Planned” and “Unplanned.”
In the United States, just over half – 51% or 52% – are intended, leaving the remainder unintended. Of unintended pregnancies, a little less than half are unwanted, around 40% of them, or 19 to 20% of all pregnancies.
Some pregnancies are planned, some are unplanned. Some are wanted, some are unwanted.
All pregnancies involve a mom and at least one child.
Don’ fergit the daddy, Daddy got the magic what bring it all together, what makes it all happen.
Still, the man got his wants and non-wants, although in the end the woman gets to say.
Well, this thread is drifting around a bit…. :P
I’ve never had an abortion but I did have my tonsils out.
Oops my apologies Boris. All pregnancies do involve a mom, a dad, and a child.
Abortion involves a mom, a dad, and a dead child.
That should cover all parameters.
I had my tonsils out when I was very young Doug. And my adenoids. I’ve still got my appendix though.
I win the removed organs game.
It’s actually pretty offensive to compare abortion to something like a tonsillectomy though. The organs removed in an abortion do not belong to you.
I win the removed organs game. – ahem! Evidence? (stands with arms crossed and foot tapping)
Wanna play whose had the most broken bones?
I vote spleen trumps tonsils and adenoids. :) I do not wish to play who had the most broken bones, that’s a depressing game lol.
But seriously, you guys can’t compare a tonsillectomy to an abortion. If abortion were like a tonsillectomy (even if you ignore the inconvenient fact that you’re killing a human being), I sincerely doubt you’d have women getting traumatized about it, or considering it a heart-rending decision, or thinking about it and regretting it years later (yes I realize not all women feel like this, but many do. How many do you think feel the same about their tonsils being removed?).
No broken bones here, not even one, but have taken some fearful whacks. Eating a lot of cheese is good for that.
Jack, my wife is without her tonsils, uterus, gall bladder, appendix, and 4 wisdom teeth. You sure you win?
P.S. Praxedes, this is where you’re supposed to say, “Yeah, Doug, and her husband must have had his heart and brain removed.:
:P
Jeez Doug I meant I win against you and Reality. Not your wife who apparently needs half her organs removed!
Holy crow – don’t think she could take getting half of what’s left taken out…. ; )
See, “Steven?” “Reality totally evaded the obvious topic, when asked directly: when, along the continuum from boy-egg meets girl-egg [note: one red herring is to accuse pro-lifers of being hypocrites if they support the wasting of a gamete] to whatever point in the lifespan that Peter Singer would acknowledge that you could no longer kill a kid, which for him is at least at the one-year mark, does life begin?
This question can again be given the slip by the “personhood” red herring, the “sentience” red herring, or the “quality of life” red herring.
Watch and take notes.
Yep, spleen trumps tonsils and adenoids, can’t argue with that.
I do not wish to play who had the most broken bones, that’s a depressing game lol. – why, ‘cos you think you won’t win? ;-)
but many do. – ‘many’? Ever talked to women before and/or after hysterectomies?
Jeez Doug, you need to look after your wife. And I’m sure you do.
Yep, spleen trumps tonsils and adenoids, - can’t argue with that.
I do not wish to play who had the most broken bones, that’s a depressing game lol. – why, ‘cos you think you won’t win? ;-)
but many do. – ‘many’? Ever talked to women before and/or after hysterectomies?
Jeez Doug, you need to look after your wife. And I’m sure you do.
when, along the continuum from boy-egg meets girl-egg [note: one red herring is to accuse pro-lifers of being hypocrites if they support the wasting of a gamete] to whatever point in the lifespan that Peter Singer would acknowledge that you could no longer kill a kid, which for him is at least at the one-year mark, does life begin? – that is not the question you asked.
boy-egg meets girl-egg – ???
is true – one organ not same as whole baby, but works both ways. my aunt Borbala has three kids, four miscarriages along the way. okay – maybe not everybody feel exact same way, but miscarriage nothing like losing one of her born kids, would it happen.
in russia is same saying – time is the best healer – Borbala was not happy about miscarraiges, no, of course not. but she feel good fast and go on to have her whole family. you can say child or you can say baby all night long, but Borbala not trade anything. better 20 miscarriages than lose 1 born kid. better 50 miscarriages.
]Reality: ”boy-egg meets girl-egg – ???”
Yeah, they walked off into the sunset, and then got married, where they took the name of Benedict.
To be serious, I think some pro-lifers are trying to pretend that the debate is over the physical reality of the unborn, when the truth is that it’s really not.
Yeah – wife is fine – years since any operations. : )
A bit reminiscent of something else Doug. I’d prefer Florentine.
I tend to agree.
Are you guys (“reality” and Doug) so desperate as to compare a pregnancy to driving? So yes, the same logic applies. And your point is what? That having inconsequential sex somehow carries less odds than consequential driving? So I drive but I risk my own life and not two lives in the case of an abortion. Would you propose that if I have a fender bender I just I hit and run.
The problem is you have no consideration for the woman prior to, during and post intercourse other than pushing her into a PP “clinic.” You want the woman to hit and run…
It was your so called ‘logic’ being compared “thomas r.”, not the events themselves.
‘inconsequential’ — ‘odds’ —‘consequential’– what a blatant misinterpretation.
You stated that a pregnancy could not be deemed ‘unwanted’ if people had sex knowing the possible consequences. Following that ‘logic’ it must be held that an auto accident cannot be deemed ‘unwanted’ because you know the possible consequences when you drive.
Would you propose that if I have a fender bender I just I hit and run. The problem is you have no consideration for the woman prior to, during and post intercourse other than pushing her into a PP “clinic.” You want the woman to hit and run… – and this is just plain patently false. Utterly risible.
Every liberal has at some point in their life had their logic removed. Does that count?
So I drive but I risk my own life – so you only ever drive alone, right? And you have only ever had or intend to have a single vehicle accident, right? If that’s the case you might have two ‘unwanteds’ coming your way.
I’ve seen better presuppositions truthseeker. So you’ve lost on this count ;-)
Thomas, no desperation at all, just the recognizance of what is logical and what is not.
First of all, it is not the pregnancy and driving which are comparable, here. It is driving and having sex – both are actions that may lead to unwanted situations.
And that’s really it – doesn’t matter what the people knew in advance nor even what was desired at the time. There can be all sorts of premises, all sorts of givens. Sometimes the people really don’t know the same things that we take for granted. My wife teaches High School, and there are quite a few kids that think, “You can’t get pregnant the first time you have sex,” and “You can’t get pregnant if the guy pulls out.”
Not too smart, there, but again – doesn’t matter. If and when a pregnancy is fact, then it may be unwanted, regardless of who knew what or who thought what, ahead of time. Or it may be wanted. Same deal – doesn’t matter what went before. It is a thing that exists in the minds of the people involved – the woman or couple. (And sure – others may too have their opinions, but when we speak of this wanted/unwanted, we’re not talking about what ‘others’ want.)
You were talking about a failure in logic, due to using “unwanted pregnancy” in a sentence, and that is simply false. It’s factually true, often, and it conforms to the rules of usage in the English language. The error in logic was yours – your assertion that knowledge of the possibility of a thing is necessarily consent to the thing, desire for the thing.
“Every liberal has at some point in their life had their logic removed. Does that count?”
See people get mad at me all the time but no one objects to stuff like this. And then people wonder why I get touchy and think all other pro-lifers are against me, lol.
“‘many’? Ever talked to women before and/or after hysterectomies?”
Hm, I’ve known women who have had hysterectomies and some of them do grieve, just like women who lose their breasts to cancer sometimes grieve and men who lose their testicles or penis grieve. Something about the loss of reproductive organs and primary and secondary sex characteristics causes people to really feel bad. BUT, I’ve never seen someone get so upset over the loss of their uterus, or breasts, or testicles like I’ve seen people grieve the babies they’ve lost in abortion, especially if it was a coerced abortion. People can grieve for DECADES. And yes many, if you were privy to the membership roles of organizations that post-abortive people put together to reach out to those grieving then you’d see many people grieving.
But anyway, that’s not the primary reason for opposing abortion anyway. I think it was Bobby Bambino on this blog who said it best, that even if every woman was 100% happy with her abortion, it didn’t make it right because it’s still killing another life.
“maybe not everybody feel exact same way, but miscarriage nothing like losing one of her born kids, would it happen.”
Well, like I just pointed out it’s not about feelings. Everyone in the world could feel it’s okay to just kill you right now and that wouldn’t change the reality that you’re a human and it’s not cool to just off humans. But anyway, I don’t know why people tend to grieve miscarriages less (that’s not universal though, I know many women who still grieve their miscarried and stillborn babies decades later). Maybe it’s simply the fact that you know your born children longer. I’ve had many friends die, and it was always much more devastating the longer you’ve known the person and the closer you were. An early miscarriage, you haven’t had much time to bond with that baby so maybe that’s why some people feel less pain.
Or it could be that the world’s been dehumanizing fetuses for a long time, and most people of child-bearing age have grown up thinking of “people” and “fetuses” as separate things.
I can’t stop reading Boris’s comment in a really heavy Russian accent in my head lol.
‘many’ isn’t exactly a concise measure Jack. 98.7% of post-abortive women are happy or at least ambivilent about their abortions.
Everyone in the world could feel it’s okay to just kill you right now and that wouldn’t change the reality that you’re a human and it’s not cool to just off humans. – That’d be because you don’t accept the diiferentiation that pro-choice folk do Jack.
But anyway, I don’t know why people tend to grieve miscarriages less (that’s not universal though, I know many women who still grieve their miscarried and stillborn babies decades later). Maybe it’s simply the fact that you know your born children longer. – that could be part of it. There are the visual differences between the overall image of a fetus in the womb and a baby in the arms too.
I can’t stop reading Boris’s comment in a really heavy Russian accent in my head lol. – too true!
See people get mad at me all the time but no one objects to stuff like this. And then people wonder why I get touchy and think all other pro-lifers are against me, lol.
Jack, if pro-lifers are doing it, and pro-lifers are not objecting to it, what does that say about them? Lots of times, at that point pro-choicers aren’t going to make a big deal about it, either, being content with the exposition as it is.
Man, I’ve been arguing about women’s rights and abortion, off and on, for 16 or 17 years. Old Truthseeker ain’t too bad…. :)
Totally agree with you – while having an abortion or miscarriage may not be a big deal for a woman, it certainly can be, and there would generally be pretty well beyond having organs removed.
Bobby Bambino on this blog who said it best, that even if every woman was 100% happy with her abortion, it didn’t make it right because it’s still killing another life.
I sure like that wrasslin’ rascal, but “happy” and “right,” there, are both concepts of the mind, both subjective, internal to the self, regardless of any attribution we may make (even to supposedly external sources).
Or it could be that the world’s been dehumanizing fetuses for a long time, and most people of child-bearing age have grown up thinking of “people” and “fetuses” as separate things.
Not really sure about “dehumanizing” in the past, but that’s really not the deal now. The physical reality of the unborn is there, and that’s that – it’s not the debate. If there is somebody that is saying, “the unborn in this argument are not human,” then I’d argue with them as strongly as you would. At the very least, they’d have to be talking about a different thing than the presence or not of certain DNA.
Personhood, now – yeah, that’s a deal. I do see the unborn as persons late in gestation, much the same way that the full-term, born baby is.
What if we remove somebody’s brain, and pump oxygenated blood with nutrients through the arteries? What is there, then?
Is it an alive person? A dead person? It’s certainly human and alive – the processes of life are ongoing. Is it a person at all?
Reality says: November 25, 2013 at 10:52 pm – “that is not the question you asked.”
Yes, it is.
Nov. 25th 5:56pm
since the science textbooks have been re-written, can you inform the rest of us when life begins?
Nov. 25th 10:38pm
when, along the continuum from boy-egg meets girl-egg [note: one red herring is to accuse pro-lifers of being hypocrites if they support the wasting of a gamete] to whatever point in the lifespan that Peter Singer would acknowledge that you could no longer kill a kid, which for him is at least at the one-year mark, does life begin?
No comparison, so no it’s not.
I’d still like to know all about this ‘boy-egg meets girl-egg’ business. Who re-wrote that science textbook?
Reality wrote, in reply to Praxedes,
That’s a bit meaningless Praxedes. It should be: Some men are poor, some are rich. Some are smart, some are dumb. Some are anti-choice, some are pro-choice. You need to include all the parameters, not just some.
Ah. Parameters such as “proabort” (which you excluded), “anti-abortion”, “abortion-tolerant”, “pro-legal-abortion”, “pro-death”, “anti-life”, and the like (so long as you’re throwing in loaded terms)? It’s a bit easier to take your comments seriously if you hold yourself to your own standards, friend.
(*sigh*) Reality, dear fellow: I’ve read only a hand-ful of your comments on this thread, and they’ve degraded to the most tiresome trollery (many of which don’t even pretend to avoid the most grotesque fallacies–I note especially TLD’s comment that you were using red herrings… and you reply with: a red herring about “boy-egg, etc.”! ); are you really aspiring to be of any influence for your cause whatsoever, or are you simply amusing yourself by being a jerk, here?
Doug! Good heavens, dear fellow, I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age! :)
Re: some of your comments: you do recall our discussions about moral relativism and its ultimate self-defeating nature, yes? (I do give you special credit, in one sense: you pushed the “moral relativism” idea quite far, whereas some more recent contributors [e.g. Reality] haven’t pushed it quite so far–though your moral compass has suffered for it. Reality is not willing to equate his moral convictions with the merest of personal preferences and tastes, but you certainly seemed to be.)
Three possible outcomes for moral relativism, Doug: (1) solipsism, (2) insanity, (3) conversion away from moral relativism.
“Would you propose that if I have a fender bender I just I hit and run. The problem is you have no consideration for the woman prior to, during and post intercourse other than pushing her into a PP “clinic.” You want the woman to hit and run… – and this is just plain patently false. Utterly risible.”
“reality” you are completely intellectually dishonest as always. You promote the idea that it is her choice and that she can do whatever she wants in regard to the pregnancy. How is that then “patently false” when I compare this to a hit and run? No you do not offer this woman any counseling. No you do not care whether she is psychologically and emotionally in the right place. No you don’t even consider if she may be a minor. Your only concern is that she says “I want inconsequential sex” and after that “I want an abortion.” That is enough for you. Let us not stop there. You are perfectly fine with PP’s “counselors” pushing her into this decision when she is not even sure if she should proceed.
There is plenty of evidence on this blog how you circumvent serious questions related to this dilemma and always get back circularly to “its her choice no matter what.” It’s well established that nothing else interests you about that woman beyond that. At least Steven had the guts to tell us what he truly thought. You on the other hand bury yourself in this intellectual pretentiousness and just play games with human life. And in the meantime, that woman is left to her own defenses by the “counselors” of PP. But as I said you could careless…
I should expect one of your signature clown comebacks?
Thomas R., please stop feeding the troll.
You to, Paladin.
JDC: I could not resist to respond to one particular non-sensical sentence he wrote. I know it will go nowhere but that had to be said..
:) I stand justly rebuked (ironic, since I’m usually the town herald of “DNFTT”)!
Reality, if you don’t wish to be taken for a troll, perhaps you might exercise a bit of self-restraint and civility, and avoid the fallacy-of-the-week in your replies? If you were to adopt a stance of reasoned discourse (uncoloured by sneers, jeers, jabs, hoots, and other drivel fit only for the New Yorker magazine), I doubt that anyone would mind your contributions, even if they disagreed with you…
Parameters such as “proabort” (which you excluded), “anti-abortion”, “abortion-tolerant”, “pro-legal-abortion”, “pro-death”, “anti-life”, and the like – you can throw them in too if you like Paladin. The point was about relevant comparisons not apples with squirrels.
and you reply with: a red herring about “boy-egg, etc.”! ); are you really aspiring to be of any influence for your cause whatsoever, or are you simply amusing yourself by being a jerk, here? – hey, I’m not the one who threw in the ‘boy-egg meets girl-egg’ business, it’s not my red herring.
“thomas r.”, you speak of things which you know nothing about chum.
No you do not offer this woman any counseling. – which woman? And how could you know?
No you do not care whether she is psychologically and emotionally in the right place. – false.
No you don’t even consider if she may be a minor. – again, a false claim without basis.
Your only concern is that she says “I want inconsequential sex” and after that “I want an abortion.” That is enough for you. – and yet again, utter rubbish.
You have dropped nothing more than a fetid pile of falsehoods diametrically opposed to the truth.
you circumvent serious questions related to this dilemma – and how’d you go with addressing the ‘only person in the car having a single vehicle accident’ part?
and always get back circularly to “its her choice no matter what.” – no, I’m happy to do that directly. Circular is not required.
It’s well established that nothing else interests you about that woman beyond that. – you obviously haven’t been paying attention. Or are you just being disingenuous? I have spoken of my support for young, single mothers, amongst others, on a number of occasions.
avoid the fallacy-of-the-week in your replies? – by which you mean replies that you don’t agree with, or like.
If you were to adopt a stance of reasoned discourse (uncoloured by sneers, jeers, jabs, hoots, and other drivel fit only for the New Yorker magazine), – aha, take a look around, don’t single me out.
I doubt that anyone would mind your contributions, even if they disagreed with you… – that’s generous of you, towards some others here. And since you have a habit of defining anything I opine as fallacious, without foundation etc. etc. – even when evidenced – not particularly helpful.
“‘many’ isn’t exactly a concise measure Jack. 98.7% of post-abortive women are happy or at least ambivilent about their abortions. ”
I don’t remember if you’ve ever sourced this claim. And do you really think “ambivalence” is a goal to shoot for when talking about something as important as killing a gestating fetus?
I do notice something when I read “happy” abortion stories is they don’t sound all that… happy. It might be just my personal bias, but I see a lot of things like “I still get sad every time I think about it, it was ten years ago, but I don’t regret it!”, or “I can’t listen to ‘Brick’ by Ben Folds anymore (it’s a song about abortion)” or “Sometimes I look at my baby and I can’t stop thinking about the one I could have been holding years ago”. Those are things I notice from reading stories on I’m Not Sorry, that website for “positive” abortion stories. That doesn’t seem incredibly positive to me. I don’t feel sad about getting my spleen removed (though I’m annoyed it was ruptured lol, stupid organ) and that was like 17 years ago. And I don’t know many women who regret and look back with sadness on their uteruses that they lost to a hysterectomy years ago (except for those who were particularly young and lost their chance at child-bearing, those people seem to have more sadness).
But anyway, I do believe that how women feel about abortion is less important than the reality of the child that’s killed (though I obviously don’t women to be damaged either). There are plenty of blogs and groups and such about mothers who regret or even hate their kids (I always think I should hook my mom up with them, lol), but that doesn’t mean that their children should be destroyed or blamed or anything like that because of their mother’s feelings about them or poor life choices.
And I don’t accept the differentiation between a fetus and a born person because… every born person was a fetus as some point. Every single one of us, in the same bodies we have now, once occupied a uterus. It seems quite irrational to me to decide that one stage of human development is totally okay to kill at a whim while others are protected. But of course there are people who don’t want to stop at just killing fetuses, I don’t want to get into THAT argument again.
Doug,Long time no blog matie :)
“What if we remove somebody’s brain, and pump oxygenated blood with nutrients through the arteries? What is there, then?
Is it an alive person? A dead person? It’s certainly human and alive – the processes of life are ongoing. Is it a person at all? What is a person who has their brain removed?” A Democrat
” Personhood, now – yeah, that’s a deal. I do see the unborn as persons late in gestation, much the same way that the full-term, born baby is.”
Doug, personhood is subjective isn’t it. Just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder so is personhood. And were it not for our Constitution granting all people equality of personhood then a lot of people would be deemed unworthy of life by the elite class. We already have that going on. I know people say it is BS about the IPAB in Obamacare being a death panel but that is exactly what they will be when they start ruling on who is worthy of care and who is not. They are bean counters and they will be looking to save money so they will start by restricting start by rationing end-of-life care and putting people in hospice care instead of treating them. Those people will basically be deemed unworthy of care which is a lot like being deemed non-persons but there really is no question in my mind to their daughters and sons and grandchildren that they their life is of as much value as any other persons. But others would have the perspective that old people’s lives are not worth as much as younger people’s lives.
Truthseeker, for the last time, rationing healthcare based on other factors is no different from how we ration healthcare right now based on who can afford it. IPAB is not a death panel.
And it won’t stop there. They will create a list of criteria that will be used to determine each citizens worth to society. The criteria chosen will be subjective. And we will have an incompetent socialist pro-abort boob selecting the fifteen people who will sit on this panel and thanks to the recent presidential appointment rule change (power grab) in the senate the minority party will have no ability to influence who gets appointed to this board. Uggh and good grief!
Jack, it is different. In the past if you had a policy with no lifetime cap or the cost of the procedure fell within your cap then that decision was left between a person and their doctor. What good is an Obamacare no ‘lifetime’ cap if they can deny you end of life care because it costs too much.
In the past if you could not afford a policy with no lifetime cap you were basically out of luck. An estimated 45,000 people died yearly because they couldn’t access proper healthcare. That’s rationing, whether you admit it or not.
How does your “sky is falling” scenario line up with the longer life expectancies in countries with single payer healthcare? If government regulated healthcare is so awful, I want to know how you explain the better outcomes.
“IPAB is not a death panel.”
Yes it is Jack. And it is a conversation that we need to have now or many people like you will fail to see it until people start getting placed in hospice care or denied critical care because they are deemed unworthy of the expense.
“If government regulated healthcare is so awful, I want to know how you explain the better outcomes.”
Jack, there are many factors that determine a person’s longevity. But when the time comes where people need critical care; the best outcomes IMO come when those decisions are left between the doctor and their patient. it is not hard to find horror stories about critically ill people being left to die in the places that have your government run nirvana of health care. And not only that, but when you are willing to give the government control over these decisions and the subjective criteria they use to deem worth then the amount of care people get is not at all guaranteed. As government continues to spend with an insatiable appetite then over the years care you or me get today could be completely different then care our children. Government is notorious for spending away today and mortgaging on the backs of future generations.
“In the past if you could not afford a policy with no lifetime cap you were basically out of luck”
Jack, let’s keep it real. The truth is that statistically only a very small percentage (if I had to guess it would be far less than 1%) of people ever reached their lifetime cap.
I don’t remember if you’ve ever sourced this claim. – haven’t seen anyone dispute it with reliable, unbiased data. I just reject the notion that a large percentage of women are harmed by their abortions even if some haven’t yet realised it or been convinced of it.
And do you really think “ambivalence” is a goal to shoot for when talking about something as important as killing a gestating fetus? – yes. That’s the pro-choice perspective. Yours is obviously different.
I do notice something when I read “happy” abortion stories is they don’t sound all that… happy. It might be just my personal bias, – probably - but I see a lot of things like “I still get sad every time I think about it, it was ten years ago – well I don’t exactly get all cock-a-hoop over the ending of previous relationships. But I also know that their ending was a whole lot better than their not ending.
But anyway, I do believe that how women feel about abortion is less important than the reality of the child that’s killed – yes, I know your position. Most others believe differently.
There are plenty of blogs and groups and such about mothers who regret or even hate their kids – there are? I do know of people who think or say such things and I’ve read articles and such but…
that doesn’t mean that their children should be destroyed or blamed or anything like that because of their mother’s feelings about them or poor life choices. – do they express a desire to do so?
truthseeker, if you really and truly, seriously think that obamacare will lead to death panels then perhaps you’d better run for office.
“The truth is that statistically only a very small percentage (if I had to guess it would be far less than 1%) of people ever reached their lifetime cap.”
lol
Reality, it not a matter of opinion. It is written in the law. And people who say it is not are just perpetuating another lie about the law.
Blue Velvet, Maybe you could help us out. According to Jack only a total of 45.000 died each year because they couldn’t access proper health care. That is less than 1% of the insured people in California alone and only a fraction of that had probably reached their a lifetime cap. How many people do you know who reached their lifetime caps? Can you stop laughing long enough to show us some numbers?
TS: I know people say it is BS about the IPAB in Obamacare being a death panel but that is exactly what they will be when they start ruling on who is worthy of care and who is not. They are bean counters and they will be looking to save money so they will start by restricting start by rationing end-of-life care and putting people in hospice care instead of treating them. Those people will basically be deemed unworthy of care
Truthseeker, the “end of life counseling” idea was first put forth by Johnny Isakson of Georgia, then a House member, later a Senator. A Republican. He and other Republicans realized that we cannot pay for unlimited procedures for everybody. It was true then, and it’s even more true now. The fact is that there comes a point when the system is not able to equitably give total care for everybody. The US is the biggest debtor nation in the world, dude….
“Jack, let’s keep it real. The truth is that statistically only a very small percentage (if I had to guess it would be far less than 1%) of people ever reached their lifetime cap. ”
Mind = blown. Have you never heard of chronic conditions? Cancer? And even the end of life care you’re so concerned about, do you have any idea how much it realistically costs? It’s not a negligible amount of people.
The 45,000 is estimated yearly includes people who were unable to access primary care to manage conditions so ended up with much serious ones. That happened to me when I had pneumonia, an easily manageable condition turned into an almost fatal one from a lack of access to affordable care. I don’t know why anyone would blow off 45,000 lives lost yearly, especially someone who claims to be pro-life. A big concern with the lifetime caps are those who meet them tend to be very ill, then their care is no longer covered, which bankrupts them and sticks everyone else with the bill.
“Truthseeker, the “end of life counseling” idea was first put forth by Johnny Isakson of Georgia, then a House member, later a Senator. A Republican. He and other Republicans realized that we cannot pay for unlimited procedures for everybody. It was true then, and it’s even more true now. The fact is that there comes a point when the system is not able to equitably give total care for everybody.”
Doug, Before Obamacare if a person had a health insurance policy and the care was within their coverage cap then those decisions were left between a doctor and their patient. Discussions about end of care is not in and of itself a bad thing. What is a very, very, very bad thing is having a panel of bureaucrats with the power to step between the doctor patient relationship and make the decision for them.
“Jack, if pro-lifers are doing it, and pro-lifers are not objecting to it, what does that say about them? Lots of times, at that point pro-choicers aren’t going to make a big deal about it, either, being content with the exposition as it is.”
No my annoyance comes from people getting mad at me like every other comment for saying something that makes someone mad, truthseeker and a few others gladly generalize and are mean all the time and no one says anything. It’s frustrating. I don’t know why it’s wrong to generalize conservatives, but generalize liberals, atheists, whatever, is no big deal. I end up feeling picked on. I’m supposed to be part of the group here guys. Everyone has time to criticize me constantly but people don’t say anything to him.
“I sure like that wrasslin’ rascal, but “happy” and “right,” there, are both concepts of the mind, both subjective, internal to the self, regardless of any attribution we may make (even to supposedly external sources).”
Well yeah, it’s subjective. Truthfully we’re just both arguing for the society we’d rather see. I’d rather see one where all humans are legally protected from being killed and you want to leave those who are less than twenty weeks from conception out, if I recall your views correctly.
“What if we remove somebody’s brain, and pump oxygenated blood with nutrients through the arteries? What is there, then?”
Well, is there a designated time limit to where the person’s sentience would return? Say… about nine months? The problem with these scenarios is you’re comparing people who can’t possibly be known to recover to fetuses, which will remain in the uterus for a limited amount of time, that is known. So arguing over personhood doesn’t make much sense to me. We’ll probably never agree on that, but it’s not debatable that pregnancy has a time limit, and I would rather err on the side of not killing a human just because we can’t agree on whether he or she is a “person” yet.
Ahoy, Paladin.
Three possible outcomes for moral relativism, Doug: (1) solipsism, (2) insanity, (3) conversion away from moral relativism.
I remember you saying that in the past. Well, moral relativism is what we have, and will continue to have, and have always had. It’s the way things really work, in the moral realm, regardless of the varied frameworks within which some people attempt to see it.
We all know there is great debate about abortion. How about shooting and killing somebody that kicks in your front door? Some people say it’s okay, some say it’s not okay. It does not have to be “one way.” Same for doctor-assisted suicide, gay/lesbian relationships, having a baby outside of marriage, etc. Female genital mutilation in some other countries – they assert that “their way” is right, just as strongly as you assert your way is.
“Mind = blown.”
Jack, let it be on the record that your mind is blown. I didn’t disagree with your numbers or saying that people reaching their lifetime caps was not a bad thing. But I would rather take my chances buying a policy with a lifetime cap and leaving those decisions between me and my doctor then having a policy with no lifetime cap and having an IPAB board deciding wether or not I am ‘worth’ of critical care.
“But I would rather take my chances buying a policy with a lifetime cap and leaving those decisions between me and my doctor then having a policy with no lifetime cap and having an IPAB board deciding wether or not I am ‘worth’ of critical care.”
Haha, it’s really not up to your doctor. If you think doctors have complete say on whether they can do a surgery on someone who has no way of paying for it, there’s not much we can say to each other.
TS: Doug, Before Obamacare if a person had a health insurance policy and the care was within their coverage cap then those decisions were left between a doctor and their patient. Discussions about end of care is not in and of itself a bad thing. What is a very, very, very bad thing is having a panel of bureaucrats with the power to step between the doctor patient relationship and make the decision for them.
Truthseeker, on the one hand I think you may be mischaracterising how Obamacare really works, there. However, even if not, then I will state again that we do not have unlimited resources to devote to everybody, nor can we allow everybody to head toward their “cap” – if for example it’s a million bucks or the like.
If you’re worried about “somebody not getting care,” then you gotta realize that Obamacare covers millions of people that weren’t covered without it. This is not a Republican/Democrat thing, really, this is simple mathematics and realizing that if the gov’t is paying, then it not only is limited in what it can do, but its ability to pay is already massively compromised as well, from all the heinous fiscal improprieties of the past decades.
Hey, Republicans, supposedly being “conservatives,” should be out in front on this, trying to do their best for the country’s future, rather than just taking potshots at Democrats.
Jack: No my annoyance comes from people getting mad at me like every other comment for saying something that makes someone mad, truthseeker and a few others gladly generalize and are mean all the time and no one says anything. It’s frustrating. I don’t know why it’s wrong to generalize conservatives, but generalize liberals, atheists, whatever, is no big deal. I end up feeling picked on. I’m supposed to be part of the group here guys. Everyone has time to criticize me constantly but people don’t say anything to him.
Jack, from time to time there are “pro-life” posts that surely make even the majority of pro-lifers cringe down to their toenails. I’d say there is a common desire to graze in a large, monolithic crowd, even if the individuals are not giving hard looks at the truth of the situation within one argument. You want to be “part of the group,” well – so do most people, and they’d rather not argue amongst themselves,
You’re a sensitive guy, and it’s touching, really, but we all still make our own experience on message boards, pretty much, and topic-to-topic you’re more of an outlier than the average pro-lifer.
Well yeah, it’s subjective. Truthfully we’re just both arguing for the society we’d rather see. I’d rather see one where all humans are legally protected from being killed and you want to leave those who are less than twenty weeks from conception out, if I recall your views correctly.
Yes, I’d leave it up to the pregnant woman to 20 weeks. You’re right, we’re both just thinking of “which way is better.”
“If you’re worried about “somebody not getting care,” then you gotta realize that Obamacare covers millions of people that weren’t covered without it. This is not a Republican/Democrat thing, really, this is simple mathematics and realizing that if the gov’t is paying, then it not only is limited in what it can do, but its ability to pay is already massively compromised as well, from all the heinous fiscal improprieties of the past decades.”
Doug, I disagree with your premise that more people will end up insured because of Obamacare. The mathematics it is based upon is another lie. So far I see a lot of low income people with an without policies getting enrolled in medicare and a lot of low income people with policies being forced onto medicare. We didn’t need 5 million people this year losing their policies on the individual market and an estimated 80 million people losing their employer based coverage next year in order to put people on Medicare.
And fiscally this thing is a wrecking ball. The majority of people being forced onto the exchanges are seeing their premiums and deductibles go way up. It is costing a lot of families between and extra 400 and 1100 dollars a month and that is crushing for many of these families. Some can’t afford it even by cutting back. That is going to also have a hugely negative effect on the economy cause consumers (70% of the economy) will have less money towards discretionary spending.
“Hey, Republicans, supposedly being “conservatives,” should be out in front on this, trying to do their best for the country’s future, rather than just taking potshots at Democrats”
Repeal is what is best for the country’s future.
Lol “sensitive” instead of “whiner” at least you’re polite Doug. :P I just don’t think people should be mean just because someone doesn’t agree with them all the time. I’m not mean to you pro-choicers in general. And I don’t only talk to pro-lifers online.
“So far I see a lot of low income people with an without policies getting enrolled in medicare and a lot of low income people with policies being forced onto medicare. We didn’t need 5 million people this year losing their policies on the individual market and an estimated 80 million people losing their employer based coverage next year in order to put people on Medicare.”
Well do you actually have sources for these numbers? You say a lot of numbers and then when you post a source it usually says something completely different, ha. And if the sign up for insurance goes anything like Romneycare people will wait until the last minute, like humans do, but we’ll get enough people signed up. I actually don’t think the ACA will last long because we’ll eventually go to single payer because it makes much more financial and healthcare sense, but I don’t think that the ACA is the single worst thing that’s ever happened in the history of ever.
“Haha, it’s really not up to your doctor. If you think doctors have complete say on whether they can do a surgery on someone who has no way of paying for it, there’s not much we can say to each other.”
Jack, that is not what I said. Your emotions are getting in the way of your comprehension. I said before Obamacare; people with insurance policies could get services within their cap authorized by their doctors and their was no IPAB board to say yea or nay. The ‘services within their cap’ part implies that they could pay for it.
“Well do you actually have sources for these numbers?”
Jack, here is a WaPo article that has some numbers:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/31/in-first-month-the-vast-majority-of-obamacare-sign-ups-are-in-medicaid/
Oh Reality I missed your comment.
“haven’t seen anyone dispute it with reliable, unbiased data. I just reject the notion that a large percentage of women are harmed by their abortions even if some haven’t yet realised it or been convinced of it.”
Lol so it’s a number you just made up? Okay then. I think people to tend to exaggerate the amount of people who will regret their abortion, some simply don’t care for whatever reason. I doubt that 98.7% of women are perfectly fine with it though.
“there are? I do know of people who think or say such things and I’ve read articles and such but…”
Yeah there are some on Facebook, some on experienceproject.com and reddit and other places. It seems to be a common enough thing. I hear some similar things offline as well.
“that doesn’t mean that their children should be destroyed or blamed or anything like that because of their mother’s feelings about them or poor life choices. – do they express a desire to do so?”
Some do. I think the vast majority of them are just stressed out and need help (and even the… homicidal fantasizing ones need help instead of condemnation). But anyway, what was my original point? That kids shouldn’t be subject to the whims of their parents who want to cause them harm? Yes.
“Yes, I’d leave it up to the pregnant woman to 20 weeks. You’re right, we’re both just thinking of “which way is better.””
Doug, what is it that makes you uncomfortable with the killing of unborn babies at 20 weeks? And don’t those same qualities exist in unborn babies at 19 weeks?
I doubt that 98.7% of women are perfectly fine with it though. – I did say happy or ambivilent. Women don’t have an abortion for fun – they just find it necessary.
I don’t do ‘social media’, it’s so…..anti-social.
That kids shouldn’t be subject to the whims of their parents who want to cause them harm? – I could say the same thing. The defining and meaning would be different though.
I was just reaffirmed that my comment to “reality” went nowhere. He is true trooper of abortion. Happy Thanksgiving “reality.”
Did your comment go into moderation or something “thomas r.”?
And you yours “thomas r.”.
I do enjoy a good turkey :-)
Turkey is gross.
Happy Thanksgiving all.
Ha, I’m also going to have turkey for christmas, take that Jack! :-)
Ew. I’m having flashbacks to having dinners at my in-laws where the only thing I could eat that the carnivores hadn’t sullied was cranberry jelly, salad, and green bean casserole (which I love). Haha. My MIL even puts chicken broth in her mashed potatoes for some weird reason.
Chicken broth in her mashed potatoes!?! – travesty! Yuck!
They should be ‘pure’ or with a hint of onion.
Maybe garlic.
Mixed with pumpkin is nice too.
Even some defenestrated peas.
Ah, mashed potatoes, food of the….um, um….wise?
I make mashed potatoes with butter, cream, onion and garlic. And usually mixed with corn. That’s yumminess. I got a food box this year, gave away the turkey and other meat stuff I can’t eat to my neighbors. I’ll make my own Thanksgiving dinner without nasty meat stuff. :)
I was joyously with you until you got to the corn bit Jack.
Did your neighbors give you stuff they didn’t like in return?
Well they tried to give me beer but I’m trying to stay sober so I turned it down! Very proud of myself, sobriety is very difficult for me. They said they are making fruit salad as a side, and I don’t have any fruit, so they’ll probably bring me some tomorrow. It should be a good day. I just wish I could have the kids on holidays but it’s important they get to see their extended family so they are with their mother.
Do you have any fun plans?
Well I hope they do give you some fruit salad Jack.
Nope, no ‘fun’ plans Jack. I am content with being content. A slightly special meal compared to other days perhaps.
Oh Jack, I am so sorry – no meat and no booze for you….
However, to be serious, I hope you and yours have happy days.
TS: Doug, what is it that makes you uncomfortable with the killing of unborn babies at 20 weeks? And don’t those same qualities exist in unborn babies at 19 weeks?
Truthseeker, an early “erring on the side of safety,” if you will, as far as the development of sentience, cortical functions – the awareness that usually develops during the weeks in the 20s. Granted that the fertilized egg is “alive,” and that a living human organism is then there all along. I see personhood as more than that, and that there is “somebody” there later on in gestation. I’m certainly taking the desire of the pregnant woman into account as well.
Doug: Hey, Republicans, supposedly being “conservatives,” should be out in front on this, trying to do their best for the country’s future, rather than just taking potshots at Democrats.
TS: Repeal is what is best for the country’s future.
Maybe so. I don’t know, and it’s a complex deal. Separate out the knee-jerk anti-Obama and anti-Democrat stuff, of which you’ve got a boatload, and I’m not sure the mathematics that are left really support your position.
However, the rate of increase in health care costs of the last decade or couple decades is simply unsustainable. The new healthcare legislation covers some 2700 pages, and that sounds bad to me. Don’t think the federal gov’t is all that good or efficient at implementing such things, in the first place. An offsetting factor to that is the power-as-payer that the gov’t wields, and it does an admirable job with Medicare and Medicaid now. (Non-profit hospitals really *are* that when the gov’t is paying the bills.) If it is that people are forced to buy their insurance from non-gov’t firms (the existing healthcare insurance companies) then some of that advantage is negated.
It wouldn’t bother me if Obamacare was repealed. Wouldn’t bother me if it had never come to be. What I see happening are Democrats and Republicans arguing over small stuff, like they are some huge deal, while the real huge deal is that the country is going massively bankrupt, very fast now. Neither party is even remotely willing to make hard choices, there.
TS: But I would rather take my chances buying a policy with a lifetime cap and leaving those decisions between me and my doctor then having a policy with no lifetime cap and having an IPAB board deciding whether or not I am ‘worth’ of critical care.
Truthseeker, are you saying that under Obamacare you can’t get the type of policy you desire?
I’m also wondering if the “death panels” would be for plans through private insurers – which as I understand it – would be what people get when they sign up through the exchanges.
I would think that private insurers, now and in the future, would have maximums they would pay out. The Federal Gov’t certainly does, as with very long hospital stays if you’re on Medicare. There, you get 90 days per year in the hospital, plus a lifetime extra 60 days (when they’re used, they’re gone).
So, within a given year, if you use up the 90 days and all the extra days you have left, then after that it’s on you. Obviously, most families would be bankrupted by this, and obviously that’s an unusually long stay in the hospital, but it does happen and most bankruptcies now are due to medical stuff, I believe.
As far as “death panels,” rationing, etc., the biggest push toward them has been the proposals from Paul Ryan, for the Republican-sponsored budgets for 2012, 2013, and 2014. They include block grants for Medicaid, i.e. “you get this much money and no more.”
Ryan’s proposal is less money than what Medicaid is currently spending, so that means cuts right away. The states – most of them already having to make hard choices about spending money, and unable to constantly run deficits like the federal gov’t – would be forced to decide when it really wasn’t worth it to devote tens of thousands of Dollars, hundreds of thousands of Dollars, to the care of terminal patients, the very elderly, etc.
“Truthseeker, are you saying that under Obamacare you can’t get the type of policy you desire?“ Yes, that is what I am saying. The Government mandates are forcing millions of people off policies they liked.
I’m also wondering if the “death panels” would be for plans through private insurers – which as I understand it – would be what people get when they sign up through the exchanges. – See more at: https://www.jillstanek.com/2013/11/pro-life-vid-of-day-claim-women-abort-every-day-so-its-okay/#sthash.i2gG2HZD.dpuf
“I’m also wondering if the “death panels” would be for plans through private insurers – which as I understand it – would be what people get when they sign up through the exchanges.” Private insurers will now be able to get out of denying care recommended by doctors because they will say they are just following the law and they will have our government backing them on what they must or must not cover.
“They include block grants for Medicaid, i.e. “you get this much money and no more. Ryan’s proposal is less money than what Medicaid is currently spending, so that means cuts right away.” Yes but these grants accumulate over your lifetime and then when you are retired they are used to buy policies on the open market. Those grants actually have a cash value and belong to you and not the government. And if you only use part of those grants before you die then you can leave them to your children as inheritance.
Hi Doug,
would have thought all the mental-gymnastics (ducking and weaving) with MK would have at-least stretched your myopic moral-relativity a wee bit! Please, both you and Reality indulge me in a little thouht experiment: you two are all about the primacy of ‘wanted-ness and choice’ in matters concerning human life/death. Now do a little projecting – abortion in the near future will (and should) be about ,,,,,,,(fill in the blank) eg. ‘those-over-80′; those over 75 and sick’; ‘those over 70, with a chronic condition that is not life threatening’; etc. The experiment is about YOU is such a scenario. There are deciding your wantedness. You are strong/powerful/rich now. Do these ‘secure’ your future? You do not feel any obligation to maintain ‘human life’, what will be your ‘defense’ in efforts to continue your existence?
Happy Thanksgiving!
Yes, that is what I am saying. The Government mandates are forcing millions of people off policies they liked.
Truthseeker, that’s not the same thing. I understand that originally it was said that people could keep their policies if they wanted to, and now that is not the case, at least for some people, and I’d be furious if it was me.
What I asked, though, is if you still cannot get the type of policy you desire? For instance, if you want one with a cap, or with no cap.
Private insurers will now be able to get out of denying care recommended by doctors because they will say they are just following the law and they will have our government backing them on what they must or must not cover.
This sounds like quite an oversimplification to me, not to mention that insurance companies have long denied some things, at least once in a while.
Hey John! :)
I promise you a good reply.
“What I asked, though, is if you still cannot get the type of policy you desire? For instance, if you want one with a cap, or with no cap.”
Happy Thanksgiving Doug,
Yes, that is what I am saying, you can no longer get a policy with a cap if even you want one. Obamacare has made it illegal for private insurers to sell policies with caps.
“This sounds like quite an oversimplification to me, not to mention that insurance companies have long denied some things, at least once in a while.”
It may seem overly simple but the fact is that the IPAB board can basically deny coverage of procedures that were previously covered. They do this by setting reimbursement rates so low that it is no longer profitable for doctors or hospitals to offer the procedure.
Now do a little projecting – abortion in the near future will (and should) be about ,,,,,,,(fill in the blank) eg. ‘those-over-80?; those over 75 and sick’; ‘those over 70, with a chronic condition that is not life threatening’; etc. – that’s not abortion! I find this to be nothing more than highly imaginative. People will make choices for themselves, as they already do via euthanasia. At their own volition.
Heavens… so many messages, so little energy!
Sorry, everyone… on Tuesday, I was hit with a case of tonsillitis which has laid me low, and it’s not done with me, it seems; at present, I’m too weak to walk to the restroom without the aid of a cane! When I recover enough (and if the thread is still active), I’ll try to write what I can. Blessed Thanksgiving to all!
Reality, you-talk like: it’s OK to kill human-(fetus’) with an imagined projection of a bad future, yet you think that many other Americans take the constitutional right-to-life seriously. If so, I have this bridge in Brooklyn … that you can buy … ! Women decide to kill their human offspring, who/what will defend you when someone-else decides your fate..? [Seems you do not know that in the Netherlands young-kids are getting euthanized and nobody has informed them. Are you going to survive when that societal-climate arrives on US-soil? How?]
That’s no good Paladin. Tonsilitis doesn’t work well when top nosh is order of the day. I hope you have a speedy recovery.
John, you’re casting inaccuracies upon me, leading to you making faulty suppositions.
Get well soon Pal Paladin!
TS: Obamacare has made it illegal for private insurers to sell policies with caps.
Okay, Truthseeker, and then if so I’m not sure what to think about that. On the face of it, it sounds bad to me, but then I think of what would happen if people holding capped policies got really, really sick and hit the cap. What happens then? Many of them would end up on Medicaid, I figure, and perhaps the gov’t is trying to avoid that?
And I’m just asking – I know that Obamacare very likely means an expansion in Medicaid, as it is.
I think the hard truth is that we can’t pay for everybody. Some will pay for themselves, but I’m sure that’s at an all-time low now. The future shortfalls for Medicaid (and Medicare too) are absolutely enormous.
The truth is that we cannot maintain things as they were even with past figures on enrollment in both programs. What the “new deal” is now – in the end I shudder to think.
Paladin: on Tuesday, I was hit with a case of tonsillitis which has laid me low, and it’s not done with me, it seems
Paladin, that’s too bad. Laid in bed myself Monday night and all day Tuesday until about 10 p.m. – some sorry little flu or something. Get plenty of rest and come back strong.
Doug: They include block grants for Medicaid, i.e. “you get this much money and no more. Ryan’s proposal is less money than what Medicaid is currently spending, so that means cuts right away. The states – most of them already having to make hard choices about spending money, and unable to constantly run deficits like the federal gov’t – would be forced to decide when it really wasn’t worth it to devote tens of thousands of Dollars, hundreds of thousands of Dollars, to the care of terminal patients, the very elderly, etc.
TS: Yes but these grants accumulate over your lifetime and then when you are retired they are used to buy policies on the open market. Those grants actually have a cash value and belong to you and not the government. And if you only use part of those grants before you die then you can leave them to your children as inheritance.
Truthseeker, holy crow, no, not at all. That ain’t the way it works. Each state has their own Medicaid program, and Ryan’s way would be that the federal gov’t gives them X amount of money per year. Has nothing to do with the individual. Has nothing to do with “over the individual’s lifetime.”
Has everything to do with less money going to the states, which will then have to cut services. Plain and simple. Going to have to deny stuff to people. Can’t pay everything for everybody on Medicaid, and the same is coming for Medicare.
John McDonell: would have thought all the mental-gymnastics (ducking and weaving) with MK would have at-least stretched your myopic moral-relativity a wee bit!
John, those were good arguments and conversations with MK. In the end, she agreed that desire is our motivation. No myopia involved. She was able to see the sense of things. She most certainly attributes her desires differently than I do, and maintains her Catholic beliefs.
Short of physical compulsion otherwise, we choose from among our available options – we pick that which we want the most, or that for which we have the least distaste. That’s where human motivation comes from.
Does not matter if we are saying, “I want this because….”God commands it” or ‘It’s what’s objectively right” or “my parents, my priest, my dogcatcher, etc., say it’s what’s right.” In the end, it’s all relative to us, to the individual, and hence subjective by nature. It’s what we say. Again – does not matter if we attribute it to some other source, it’s still us saying it. It’s our saying, and that’s what morality really is – the saying of our feelings of right/wrong/good/bad in the moral realm. In the moral realm, “right” and “wrong” are concepts of thought, feelings which come from the self. For another entity – individual, group, etc., to find out what our morality is, they need to see what we have to say.
JM: Please, both you and Reality indulge me in a little thought experiment: you two are all about the primacy of ‘wanted-ness and choice’ in matters concerning human life/death.
My point is that we *all* are about wantedness, there. Same deal – does not matter if you want the unborn to live (versus the pregnant woman having an abortion per her will) – and this is for any reason on your part – you too are choosing between two things here. You’d rather have the unborn live, at the expense of denying the woman what she wants. I would not, not to a point in gestation. With most types of life/death choices, there is not much debate about them, i.e. we are all in much greater agreement than is the case with the abortion debate. Wartime, self-defense, etc. – you don’t see people arguing about them as you do with abortion.
JM: Now do a little projecting – abortion in the near future will (and should) be about ,,,,,,,(fill in the blank) eg. ‘those-over-80′; those over 75 and sick’; ‘those over 70, with a chronic condition that is not life threatening’; etc. The experiment is about YOU is such a scenario. There are deciding your wantedness. You are strong/powerful/rich now. Do these ‘secure’ your future? You do not feel any obligation to maintain ‘human life’, what will be your ‘defense’ in efforts to continue your existence.
John, you lost me, at least to a point – who is worrying about those over 80 years old? This is quite far-fetched at the present time. In centuries past, there have been things like “putting out” the elderly, the sick, etc., in times of severe resource shortages. These were societies feeling bigtime population pressure. These were societies which needed to do that so the society itself would survive. The world was a different place, to a large extent, back then. It’s not impossible that such practices would again be looked to, and if so, it’s because of population pressure, just as it was in the past. As for those over 70, with a chronic condition that is not life-threatening, there too – who cares? In none of your examples is there anything remotely akin to a pregnant woman who does not want to be pregnant.
However – okay – it’s me and I take it that others want to get rid of me. (Here too, it’s quite a different thing, as I’m not inside somebody’s body and it’s not one person wanting me gone, I assume.) I’m strong, rich, powerful, as you said. Hard for me to imagine my future not being fairly well secured, there. Because if people like that are not “secure,” then who is going to be? Still, I grant you it could happen. Let’s say the rule is that you get to live to 70 and that’s it. There, or really – any way in which society decides that it has a good enough reason to kill me – then I’m gonna be killed unless I somehow escape society itself. This is the way it is already, as far as capital punishment.
Very strong sense of deja vu, John – seems like you and I have had this same conversation before…
Doug,Like I said, I read Ryan’s plan back in 08. I don’t know if there have been changes but the money given to people was in fact theirs and belonged to them. Here is a four minute video of Ryan talking about his new health care proposal.
http://paulryan.house.gov/healthcare/#.UpggeeIliSA
And not to be rude, but I am kind-of shocked that you didn’t even know that Obamacare made it illegal for people to buy policies with caps. The end result of that makes health care unaffordable for many of the lower income people who were taking care of themselves.
The plan’s name is Roadmap for America and what I said above is true and part of the plan. This is from page 53:
“Property Right: Each personal account is the property of the individual, and the resources accumulated can be passed on to the individual’s descendants. This contrasts with current government Social Security benefits, which are subject to reductions or other changes by Congress, and which cannot be passed on.”
I am not sure where you got your information but you can read a PDF of the plan for yourself at
http://roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/roadmap2final2.pdf
Hi Doug
Ah, to be an American individual, is to be an isolate. The problem here stems from the ‘black box’ philosophical mentality where i am the center of my-universe and I choose what is in that universe. [So a woman is essentially like you forming-her-own-isolation by means of her choices…. and then calling this freedom.]
the difficulty here is that the concept of what is free becomes smaller and smaller the morre I choose … I end up a nit-picker par-excellance among a group of people that can only nit-pick and call this ‘being free’.
Now along comes a Harvard neuroscience-researcher who has this stroke to the left side of her brain. This event causes all kinds of havoc, not the least of which is attempting to navigate in-the-eye-of-a-hurricane-without-any-rudder, nor-ability-to-steer. Her name is Jill Bolte Taylor, at http://www.jilltaylor.com .
What she did learn was that humans process all that information about their environment in two very distinct ways. One way is by individuating, naming, categorizing , etc – the basis for what we call: logic and debate. {This to me is very interesting, because it is about certain nerves firinf and describes what Reality calls ‘sentience’ to a ‘T;. But is ‘sentience’ the total of ‘human thought’?] This is all done in a two-centimeter section of the left-brain called ‘the-speech-center’.
What she discovered was that our brain also processes this same information quite differently by the brain’s right hemisphere. There are many attributes that would interpret/see us as one … as an American, not as an individual but as a group thinking/acting communally as-one. If you listen, she says in her shower her hand-blended-into (and was indistinguishable)-from-the-shower-wall.
I now think constitutional law (like all law) has this shared/common element to law …. that like shared sound we call words … depicts a civility that over-shadows individual barbarity – difference between Americanism and Canadian-ism!
slip-up: instead of ‘black box’ it should read ‘Cartesian-box’.
TS: Doug, like I said, I read Ryan’s plan back in 08. I don’t know if there have been changes but the money given to people was in fact theirs and belonged to them.
Truthseeker, his plan in 2008 may have included just what you said. But are you going to bank on what a politician said, 5 or more years ago? ;) The actual budgets he has proposed later on – for 2012, 2013, 2014 – have block grants, a different deal. Those go from the federal gov’t to the states for Medicaid, and it’s not at all tied to individuals who are on Medicaid. At that point, the state has so much money from the federal gov’t, and no more, and it’s up to the states to decided how it is spent. I’m sure there are many federal guidelines that affect that, but it’s still the states who would have to ration it out – and it does mean rationing – it is a lesser amount that Ryan proposed that what the states are currently getting from the federal gov’t. I am not saying this is necessarily a bad thing, either. Costs and payments cannot continue to rise without limit.
TS: And not to be rude, but I am kind-of shocked that you didn’t even know that Obamacare made it illegal for people to buy policies with caps. The end result of that makes health care unaffordable for many of the lower income people who were taking care of themselves.
Ha! Thanks for that, TS. Not a problem either way – you have a point about what I know about Obamacare, and I’ve said myself that I don’t know much about it. You could have said, “Doug, you don’t know your butt from a hole in the ground, there,” and I would laugh and agree with you. :)
I first heard that the new healthcare law took up 2700 pages. Oh great, like I am gonna get right on reading that…. :P I’ve got health insurance through my employer, and didnt think my situation would change, under Obamacare. As far as I know, that still is the case.
Okay – in checking right now, I do see that Obamacare says the health insurance companies stop having lifetime limits for essential health benefits, and that next year – 2014 – they can’t have yearly limits either.
I can see good and bad, there. Yeah, more total risk on their part, they’re gonna want to charge more. Yet again – what happens with a capped account when the individual hits the cap? Do we let them die?
John McDonell: Ah, to be an American individual, is to be an isolate. The problem here stems from the ‘Cartesian-box’ philosophical mentality where I am the center of my-universe and I choose what is in that universe. [So a woman is essentially like you forming-her-own-isolation by means of her choices…. and then calling this freedom.] the difficulty here is that the concept of what is free becomes smaller and smaller the more I choose … I end up a nit-picker par-excellance among a group of people that can only nit-pick and call this ‘being free’.
John, being American or not has nothing to do with it. Plenty of people with the same views all around the world, and the same is true for you. We are all individuals here, having our say.
As far as Cartesian stuff, placing a deity – which cannot be proven to be anything more than imaginary – at the center of things, and working from there, or indeed, taking any external position, again – for which there is no proof – and proceeding as if we all must somehow be affected by it, is as fallacious as anything.
Re your progression of freedom becoming smaller and smaller – well, that is the way it works in the real world. Once again – desire is the source of human motivation. From among our available options, we choose that which we want the most, or that for which we have the least distaste for. And of course in no way do we necessarily have unlimited options. Sometimes, we really don’t have what we see as good choices. The degree of our freedom is limited, situation-by-situation.
Now along comes a Harvard neuroscience-researcher who has this stroke to the left side of her brain. This event causes all kinds of havoc, not the least of which is attempting to navigate in-the-eye-of-a-hurricane-without-any-rudder, nor-ability-to-steer. Her name is Jill Bolte Taylor, at http://www.jilltaylor.com . What she did learn was that humans process all that information about their environment in two very distinct ways. One way is by individuating, naming, categorizing , etc – the basis for what we call: logic and debate. {This to me is very interesting, because it is about certain nerves firing and describes what Reality calls ‘sentience’ to a ‘T;. But is ‘sentience’ the total of ‘human thought’?] This is all done in a two-centimeter section of the left-brain called ‘the-speech-center’. What she discovered was that our brain also processes this same information quite differently by the brain’s right hemisphere. There are many attributes that would interpret/see us as one … as an American, not as an individual but as a group thinking/acting communally as-one. If you listen, she says in her shower her hand-blended-into (and was indistinguishable)-from-the-shower-wall. I now think constitutional law (like all law) has this shared/common element to law …. that like shared sound we call words … depicts a civility that over-shadows individual barbarity – difference between Americanism and Canadian-ism!
John, you’ve mentioned Jill Taylor in the past, and I watched the video, and it’s interesting. How, really, do you see that weighing on the abortion debate?
I do think that Canadians are a little more “civil” than Americans. I lived in Canada for 4 years, worked there for 9. Really, I’d say the average Canadian is a little nicer than the average American. It’s somewhat a cultural thing, and somewhat a product of less population pressure in Canada. Or perhaps that’s the same thing, i.e. cultures are greatly affected by population density, even often defined by it to a significant degree. The most-settled parts of New Jersey – you see some absolutely horrendous drivers, and stressed, nasty people. Sometimes I wonder how they are all not driven mad.
Thanks Doug,
but I see you don’t quite understand just how revolutionary Jill Taylor’s ideas are, In each situation humans decide based on the knowledge that they have. this knowledge is not only of one sort (it is here where the error is made. This knowing is intellectual, and emotional; free(chosen) and obligatory – like eating or having-a-heartbeat … there are literally thousands of tasks our bodiles MUST DO just to stay alive. It is limiting human freedom to say it is bound to sentience/logic, What you enjoy about BO is hid charisma and not his logic … some even forgive him (and me too) if they cannot follow the logic. Why is that? What is making sense to tthem in Their decision process? Our knowledge is at least two-fold and these are not at all identixal. Just one very important thing to remember is that all decisions have this duplixity/flip-dlop aspect to them. Anad is why many regret thei abortions. It is why your logic goes stale because it is all centered on you.
I have been chastised for not fully embracing, what is known as the Copernican-revolution. Copernicus was the first to envision a solar-system/universe that did not revolve around our earth(and Roman-Catholic ‘truth’/superiority). Instead in the Cartesian-box, the center becomes the individual and he/she is the victim of fate/whim (what happens after the nit-picking and intolerance) … and not free. Jill Taylor’s significance, is that we are not-THE-center of anything, Human life is not about Choice, but about being FREE -being one with another WHO IS THE CENTER! See God does have a role … can anything have any real significance without Him/Her? How?
“Ha! Thanks for that, TS. Not a problem either way – you have a point about what I know about Obamacare, and I’ve said myself that I don’t know much about it. You could have said, “Doug, you don’t know your butt from a hole in the ground, there,” and I would laugh and agree with you.”
Doug, they estimate that 80 million people will lose their employer coverage next year. It is not good to have so many people oblivious to Obamacare and how it hurting people and hurting the economy. Like you, I still have my employer coverage for now but you need to understand that the employer market is getting decimated and unless you wake up and join the fight to repeal Barack Obamacare then everybody will be losing our employer in the next few years.
“The actual budgets he has proposed later on – for 2012, 2013, 2014 – have block grants, a different deal. Those go from the federal gov’t to the states for Medicaid, and it’s not at all tied to individuals who are on Medicaid.”
Doug, those are not Ryan’s ‘plan’. Those are just annual budget proposals. You should take the time to read Ryan’s current plan to get us out of this mess. It does still include the private accounts and everything else I was telling you about. It is called Roadmap for America 2.0. It is only 99 pages so it is readable. I linked to it above in case you missed it.
TRY this: What is the color of your pain?
John McD: I see you don’t quite understand just how revolutionary Jill Taylor’s ideas are. In each situation humans decide based on the knowledge that they have. this knowledge is not only of one sort (it is here where the error is made. This knowing is intellectual, and emotional; free(chosen) and obligatory – like eating or having-a-heartbeat … there are literally thousands of tasks our bodiles MUST DO just to stay alive. It is limiting human freedom to say it is bound to sentience/logic.
John, I don’t say that the decision to continue or end a pregnancy should only be made on the basis of one thing, nor on several things while excluding others, necessarily. However the individual arrives at their own best choice is fine with me. From what I’ve seen Dr. Taylor say, I can’t tell whether she’s pro-choice or not. If she was pregnant, I’d say that the best thing for her to do is make her best choice – however she arrives at it. I think she had quite a “mystical” experience due to her stroke, at least compared to her life prior to that, and compared to the experiences of many of the rest of us. You are going from that to “this means abortion is bad” – where do you see that, exactly?
What you enjoy about BO is his charisma and not his logic … some even forgive him (and me too) if they cannot follow the logic. Why is that? What is making sense to them in Their decision process? Our knowledge is at least two-fold and these are not at all identical. Just one very important thing to remember is that all decisions have this duplixity/flip-flop aspect to them. And is why many regret their abortions. It is why your logic goes stale because it is all centered on you.
I disagree. I’m no big fan of Obama. I don’t watch him on TV, etc. – there’s nothing he’s going to say that affects me much, nor is there anything I can do about it even if there was something. It’s 2013 and there is no one person that can be President and “fix” the major problems that the US has. The time for that was in the past, and even then – in the past few decades, anyway – anybody determined to do what’s necessary never could have been elected. No financial conservative is gonna be President.
As far as one’s “logic being centered upon themselves,” in no way am I saying that “logic” means the pregnant woman should choose either way. That may well be part of her decision process, but it doesn’t have to me. She may just feel one way, and that’s it. However the choice is made, most women that have kids are glad, on balance, that they did so, and the same is true for women who have abortions. Again, I am saying ‘most’ while realizing that some end up regretting their decision, on balance.
John McD: I have been chastised for not fully embracing, what is known as the Copernican-revolution. Copernicus was the first to envision a solar-system/universe that did not revolve around our earth(and Roman-Catholic ‘truth’/superiority). Instead in the Cartesian-box, the center becomes the individual and he/she is the victim of fate/whim (what happens after the nit-picking and intolerance) … and not free. Jill Taylor’s significance, is that we are not-THE-center of anything, Human life is not about Choice, but about being FREE -being one with another WHO IS THE CENTER! See God does have a role … can anything have any real significance without Him/Her? How?
John, Taylor’s experience does not mean that there is a god or gods.
You say that human life is not about choice. Well, the fact is that we do make choices, all the time. Regardless of how we talk about “freedom,” life is, in a sense, an unending series of choices. How do you reconcile that?
Why would anybody now “fully embrace” the Copernican revolution? Wily Isaac Newton and a whole bunch of people came later which pretty well changed things, eh?
There must be more to the story – it seems funny to me, to think of somebody chastising you, there. Hey…. wait a minute….just how old are you?! ;)
TS: they estimate that 80 million people will lose their employer coverage next year.
Who is “they,” Truthseeker? ; )
That figure sounds quite high to me. The tax structure at present and in the coming years means it still makes sense for employers with larger amounts of employees, and for employers of higher-paid people, to offer health insurance. For those with small amounts of employees, and especially within that group – those who pay low wages – it may make more sense not to offer it.
TS: The plan’s name is Roadmap for America and what I said above is true and part of the plan. This is from page 53: “Property Right: Each personal account is the property of the individual, and the resources accumulated can be passed on to the individual’s descendants. This contrasts with current government Social Security benefits, which are subject to reductions or other changes by Congress, and which cannot be passed on.” I am not sure where you got your information but you can read a PDF of the plan for yourself at http://roadmap.republicans.budget.house.gov/uploadedfiles/roadmap2final2.pdf
Doug: “The actual budgets he has proposed later on – for 2012, 2013, 2014 – have block grants, a different deal. Those go from the federal gov’t to the states for Medicaid, and it’s not at all tied to individuals who are on Medicaid.”
TS: Doug, those are not Ryan’s ‘plan’. Those are just annual budget proposals. You should take the time to read Ryan’s current plan to get us out of this mess.
So should you, Truthseeker. : P
What you quoted (I find it on page 54, not 53) is Ryan talking about retirement accounts where the individual has elected to contribute to “personal retirement accounts” rather than pay Social Security payroll tax.
We were not talking about that, you and I. We were talking about healthcare. We were talking about Medicaid.
You even quote Ryan mentioning Social Security – that didn’t set off a few alarm bells in your head that maybe something was amiss? ; )
I’ll do a bit of reading and see what old Ryan proposes about healthcare….
TS: they estimate that 80 million people will lose their employer coverage next year. – See more at: https://www.jillstanek.com/2013/11/pro-life-vid-of-day-claim-women-abort-every-day-so-its-okay/#sthash.ZudHYA2D.dpuf
TS: they estimate that 80 million people will lose their employer coverage next year. –
TS: they estimate that 80 million people will lose their employer coverage next year. – See more at: https://www.jillstanek.com/2013/11/pro-life-vid-of-day-claim-women-abort-every-day-so-its-okay/#sthash.ZudHYA2D.dpuf
Doug: “Who is “they,” Truthseeker? ; )”
In this case Doug the the they is the DOJ Others put the estimate much higher.
banging-my-head-against-the-wall … can hardly come up with ‘what else to write?’. I make a silly asidds, yet sure enough you think it the core of my reflection. For example I made the stupid error of writing ‘AmericN-INDIVIDUAL’ and sure enough you talked about being an American and not even once questioning the xoncept or primacy of the wors ‘ndividual’. What Jill Taylor experienced was noy mystical – maybe unusual, yes. But all humans think and feel with this duality. She does not talk of abortion because … its a side issue, as is choice a side issue. We are only ‘individual’ because one part of our left hemisphere, SAYS WE ARE AN INDIVIDUAL.Its like you pulled-out your ID card and said there’s the proof. Every damn thing reenforces ME, an individual. Just think that I am a ‘we’ Decisions are not mine alone, just as the words I speak are not mine, but have a common/shared characteristic with others who draw similar meanings from my sounds.
So my decision to kill my child was formed in an environment where Doug promises ‘no interference because that’s best???? (maybe too chicken)! No moral-relativist could ever claim to know what is best – moral hypocrisy!
What Jill Taylor says that is just as valid to perceive ourselves as one being, BTW her Dad is a minister/preacher and she does not say whether this has influenced this outlook.
In reading Ryan’s ‘Roadmap,’ it says that for the states’ “long-term care and disabled” there will be block grants. My prior comments about the block grants stand.
For other Medicaid patients, there is a basic refundable tax credit – $2,300 for individuals and $5,700 for families – to pay for health coverage. For low income families with dependent children, there is also a payment of “nearly $11,000” that can be applied to health care costs. I can’t tell if this is per qualified family or per individual therein – I assume it is per family. There is also “additional assistance is provided for pregnant women and families with children younger than 1 year old.” Amount is unspecified.
I can find nothing else stated for Medicaid patients. For those who don’t have dependent children, I question how far that $2300 or $5700 per year is going to go. And, there and for the other patients with the fixed-amounts at work, what happens when the coverage runs out?
With the Federal Government assuming responsibility for the distribution and coordination of the individual Medicaid payments, States’ budgets are freed from having to account for this burden. In return, States contribute 50 percent of the individual payment amount.
This constitutes a cut in federal payments for the average state. My comments about the block grants and lesser funding apply here too.
In this case Doug the the they is the DOJ Others put the estimate much higher.
Truthseeker, the Dept. of Justice? Do you have a source?
John: banging-my-head-against-the-wall … can hardly come up with ‘what else to write?’. I make a silly asidds, yet sure enough you think it the core of my reflection. For example I made the stupid error of writing ‘AmericN-INDIVIDUAL’ and sure enough you talked about being an American and not even once questioning the xoncept or primacy of the wors ‘ndividual’.
John, I am doing the best I can to respond to everything you say. I may have replied to something you meant as just an aside, but I also reply the other things you say. I am not trying to make you exasperated. I’ve always liked you, and what you have to say, though at times it seems cryptic. Several times you have mentioned “American” and it should be no surprise that I responded. In all the years we have talked, here, I do not think I have ever been mean-spirited toward you, and I’ve also hardly ever said a cross word to you.
As far as questioning the concept or primacy of “individual” – even in the case of viewing ourselves as part of some great, cosmic all, as Jill Taylor saw it and/or now sees it, how does that impact the abortion debate?
There is how you see things, how I see them, how Dr. Taylor sees them, and there will be the way the pregnant woman sees them. In no way am I saying the pregnant woman has to see things any certain way. So, for the purposes of discussion, we are going with the “cosmic all” feeling, and still, not all pregnancies continue, even without conscious input from the pregnant woman, i.e. she wants it to continue. Even from Dr. Taylor’s viewpoint, why would abortion be seen any certain way?
John: What Jill Taylor experienced was not mystical – maybe unusual, yes. But all humans think and feel with this duality. She does not talk of abortion because … its a side issue, as is choice a side issue. We are only ‘individual’ because one part of our left hemisphere, SAYS WE ARE AN INDIVIDUAL.Its like you pulled-out your ID card and said there’s the proof. Every damn thing reenforces ME, an individual. Just think that I am a ‘we’ Decisions are not mine alone, just as the words I speak are not mine, but have a common/shared characteristic with others who draw similar meanings from my sounds. ! What Jill Taylor says that is just as valid to perceive ourselves as one being, BTW her Dad is a minister/preacher and she does not say whether this has influenced this outlook.
Well, seemed pretty mystical to me. I don’t mean that as derogatory, I mean it like surpassing natural human apprehension. The hand blending into the shower wall part, etc.
John, if choice is “a side issue” under the “I am a we” view, what do we do when we have to decide upon something? The necessity is still there.
I’m not even sure what you would want me to say, if I made the “leap” that seems to be required here.
So my decision to kill my child was formed in an environment where Doug promises ‘no interference because that’s best???? (maybe too chicken)!
I don’t say that. There are times – it would be extreme situations (where lots of other people would feel as I would) – and I’d have to know the pregnant woman well enough to think she’s really not doing what will make her the happiest in the long run. Could be if she’d be deciding to end a pregnancy, or to continue one. Most times, I would not presume to give her advice, other than to make the choice that is best for her. Hard for me to imagine a scenario where I would truly “interfere.”
No moral-relativist could ever claim to know what is best – moral hypocrisy.
That is misstating things. We all are moral relativists. Our morality is relative to ourselves, regardless of any attribution we might make. I am saying that what is best for the pregnant woman is what will make her the happiest in the long run. That’s not necessarily going to be one choice or the other.
Doug, I do get exaspirated at times and it isn’t because you have not been as cordial as all-get-out; I am frustrated at myself for not being able to find the right words that will ‘hug’ your heart so that you can say ‘Ahhh, now I see that all life is absolutely magnificent!’ Defending a waste like abortion is a waste … it is counter-intuitive that calls me to protect, not annihilate. If this is how you view life, then why do you accept as reasonable, any elective human-death?
John, very good answer there. Sometimes I feel like I have to walk on eggshells with you. I appreciate the effort you put into your posts – from what you said in past years, I think I know what it takes.
I hear you on life – it is miraculous and amazing. If that was the only consideration, then it would be a different debate. Indeed – if nobody wanted to end a pregnancy, there would not be the same debate.
Life ends whether it’s a miscarriage or an abortion per the wish of the pregnant woman. Life is starting and ending all the time – while I’m not sure what the exact percentage is, I’ve read that a lot of fertilized eggs fail to implant – like 50, 60, 75(?) percent of the time.
While consistent failure-to-implant or a miscarriage can be a sad thing for a woman or couple that wants to have kids, I don’t see it as unimaginably horrible. It’s a given, it happens all the time, it’s part and parcel of the human condition. None or almost none of the rest of us are even aware of it.
If it happens because a woman wants to end a pregnancy, I see that the same way. And I am not seeing that we, as a society, have a good enough reason to prevent her from having the abortion, to a point in gestation.
If this is how you view life, then why do you accept as reasonable, any elective human-death?
I don’t see it as one, monolithic thing. An aware, born person with feelings and relationships is not the same as a fertilized egg. If the egg fails to implant, or if an early-term pregnancy is willfully ended, I don’t see that as nearly as bad as the death of the born person.
The situation at hand also makes a lot of difference. Self-defense killings, wartime, legal execution – I’m definitely for the death penalty in some cases – even when we are talking about born, thinking, feeling people, it’s not only the consideration of life, per se, that is operative.
Doug,DOJ attorneys referenced the figure in a court briefing they filed recently in case HHS vs Priests for Life. They got the number from this 2010 federal register that I linked to below. They federal register states they expect the majority of all employer health plans to be cancelled by the end of 2013. This has been moved back a year cause Obama unilaterally granted a one year reprieve to employers so that the shit wouldn’t hit the fan until after the 2014 mid-term elections.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2010-06-17/pdf/2010-14488.pdf
“According to Jack only a total of 45.000 died each year because they couldn’t access proper health care. That is less than 1% of the insured people in California alone and only a fraction of that had probably reached their a lifetime cap. ”
I can’t believe I’m even arguing with somebody who thinks 45,000 deaths a year is a mere drop in the bucket. Think about this: hospitals are legally required to stabilize patients who arrive in the emergency room, regardless of their ability to pay. So what we’re actually talking about here is long, slow suffering: uninsured or underinsured patients showing up in the ED, getting stabilized, being turned out on the streets again, returning to the ED for the same problem within a few months, etc. until they do finally die from chronic conditions that could have probably been managed with consistent access to primary medical care.
I find your post unsurprising given the pro-life tendency to cathect on the absolute extremes of life while ignoring what it means to actually LIVE — and live a dignified life, free from misery and suffering. Of course it doesn’t matter if a man with COPD and hypertension has to use the emergency room as his source of primary care as long as he literally doesn’t die. Of course it doesn’t matter if a woman has to house another living thing in her body for nine months and consign herself to 18 years of caring for a new person despite the plans she made for her life so long as her fetus gets to live. Brute, bare life is all that matters. Pro-life=pro-torture.
TS: The federal register states they expect the majority of all employer health plans to be cancelled by the end of 2013.
Truthseeker, no, no, no.
They were estimating about small and large plans, which as I understand it is with less than 100 people or 100 people or more.
Three ranges of estimates were given:
Low-end: 49% for small plans, 34% for large.
Middle: 66% and 45%.
HIgh-end: 80% and 64%.
Somebody, somewhere, seized on that 80%, and, apparently after several hits of the metaphorical Crack pipe, decided that Obamacare means that many plans were going to be canceled.
That is wrong. They weren’t talking about that at all. They were talking about plans that would be giving up the “grandfathered-in” status, due to changes in the plans, or due to the plans being replaced by new ones.
The title page itself says: “Group Health Plans and Health Insurance Coverage Relating to Status as a Grandfathered Health Plan Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
The act treats plans with “grandfather” status differently, in some aspects, than it does plans without that status.
BlueVelvet, good post. Might raise a few eyebrows, but that’s the way of it, sometimes.
And: ”cathect” – I learned a new word today. :)
“LIVE — and live a dignified life, free from misery and suffering.”
BlueVelvet – a dignified life is not necessarily free from misery and suffering and conversely an undiginified life is not the result of misery and suffering. Those two are a part of the daily struggles we go through as human beings. Surprisingly, experiencing misery and suffering has a purpose – to make us stronger in the face of adversity.
It’s not the misery and suffering that cause the state of undignity, its the way we choose to respond to it…
I hate that “misery and suffering builds character” Mother Teresa stuff with the burning fire of a thousand suns.
I don’t know Jack, a lot is to be said for the “Crosses” we carry through life. It is my hope that we do not do so in vain. I have become a better person due to some of my misery and suffering. You have also. I don’t know if one can call it “building character” though but perhaps a “thicker skin” to absorb and deflect?
I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of having a thick skin! :)
No I do get what you’re saying. I just hate it when people justify suffering (not that you were doing that) as something positive. No, suffering and misery suck, we should work to have everyone suffer and be miserable as little as possible. It’s not noble to suffer imo, and some people seem to disagree with that (as long as it’s not them who’s suffering).
“consign herself to 18 years of caring for a new person despite the plans she made for her life so long as her fetus gets to live. ”
Considering how pro-adoption everyone is here (to the point of white-washing the less pleasant aspects of it), I can’t really believe you believe this. I don’t think anyone expects anyone to consign themselves to 18 years of caring for a kid, we just think that “kill it” isn’t a valid response to avoid motherhood.
Even roses have thorns Jack :)
Oh, should’ve couched my terms. How about “cope with the potential trauma of giving your baby away” in addition?
Putting someone through physical and emotional hell isn’t a valid way to bring new life into the world.
Hello again, everyone!
I’m still rather shaky on my feet, but at least I can think a bit(?) more clearly (time will tell, I suppose, as I write this!), so I’ll have a go at a few things I’ve read on this Herculean thread (no rhyme intended!)…
Jack, one thing which you wrote caught my attention right away: when you talked of suffering and how its seeming justification angered you greatly. I’ll try to give an answer to that as best I can… though I’ll warn the reader that I may have to wax a bit emotional/poetic (which might sacrifice some logical detail/rigour)! The topic is a very personal one for me, as I hope to explain.
First: I do understand (at least, I think I understand) your reaction: suffering is not something which any sane person craves for its own sake, and there’s nothing at all wrong with any proportional, morally licit ways to alleviate suffering when we find it (whether in ourselves or others). I don’t enjoy suffering, any more than does anyone else with a sane mind. I’ve also had a great deal of it in my life (much of which was at least indirectly self-inflicted, but some of which happened without my free choice)… and (this is a comment for the thread in general–not aimed specifically at you, Jack): I have NO DESIRE WHATSOEVER to get into a “competition” about “whose suffering is worse” (I wish I could count the number of times that the absurd idea of “whoever’s suffering is worst will win the debate!” has been used in conversations which I’ve had/read/heard… *sigh*). I offer only what I can offer, and I’ll let you take it where you will.
That being said… I know what it’s like to suffer. (I say that without any pride at all–because the suffering which was self-inflicted was due to my own stupidity and wrong-doing [for which no sane person could be proud], and because the suffering which was not self-inflicted was given to me without any action (or merit) of mine.) I come from an emotionally broken family (both immediate and extended) which was abusive in more ways than a few. I’ve had dear friends suffer and die (at least five of them by suicide) and lived with the shattered heart (of mine) which followed; the person (aside from my wife–this event largely predates her) I loved most in the world–I would happily and eagerly have given my life for her, if it had been possible–was estranged from me by things which I don’t understand at all, and those secrets were taken to the grave by a car accident which killed her, three years ago. I’ve suffered physically (75+ food allergies and a nutrient-processing disorder which defies diagnosis, which results in me being 6’1″ and… as of yesterday… 149 lbs., no matter how much I eat; I’ve been hospital-level sick more times than I can count [well over 30] and I’m currently a survivor of leukemia [I was diagnosed the day before my wedding], because of which I bruise and bleed rather easily. I’ve suffered from what seems (though this may surprise some, given the clinical and academic demeanour which I usually use on this forum for the sake of efficiency and placidity) to be an almost hyper-sensitive heart which grieves whenever someone else suffers, or whether someone else is angry with me, or what-have-you… and which simply won’t leave me alone when I have any grievance (real or imagined) against myself. I’ve suffered from profound loneliness–sometimes even when in a crowded room. (Does anyone else know what I mean, by that?) I’ve begged God to take my life, or to come again in glory at once, or ANYTHING to stop the relentless churning of this world under which I feel I must certainly be crushed, if I live even five seconds longer… since I simply can’t bear it anymore. I do know that, and more.
And yet, I do not say that suffering always equals misery. That, I think, is a “secret” specially given to Christianity to know (and to spread). Misery is actually a sort of “choice” (though it usually doesn’t feel like one), in that our choices (which build habits, attitudes [in the classical sense of that word], etc.) can influence it. A free choice, along with even a little true knowledge, can free even someone who’s in chains.
I wish I had the words to explain! I could try from the philosophical/analytical point of view, but most people don’t listen to that, anyway (though it won’t stop me from trying, even for the sake of a few)… and this is something which, while logic and sane reason support it, I didn’t embrace because of a logical syllogism. I simply KNOW. I *know* that suffering is not the fatalistic, nihilistic sentence of doom that the world claims it to be. I also know that–despite everything I believed up to that point (when my beloved friend was killed)–suffering and pain do not cancel out joy… and neither does joy cancel out suffering. The two can co-exist (painfully), side-by-side… infuriatingly, confusingly, but really. I can’t explain in clear worlds how I know that the crushing agony I felt in my grief could also run side-by-side with a joy which neither strengthened nor weakened the agony, but freed it (and me) from some sort of mental chains… except for the fact that I lived it. I know it to be true, because it happened to me.
I wish I could describe how much freedom this idea gave me! I had no idea that the prison whose name was “so long as you suffer, you cannot have joy” was a false one–a LIE. It was also a deadly lie… since the world is never really free of suffering, and therefore the lie was threatening to make me despair (i.e. choose to give up all hope) with the idea that “if suffering is unending while on earth, and you cannot have joy while suffering, then you will never have joy on earth”. It’s a damnable lie.
That much, I know… even without the Christian Faith… because I felt it, tasted it. What Christianity does is NOT to take away suffering (as wishful thinking wants to do), nor does it seek to take away the sufferer (as so-called “mercy killing” does, and as Buddhism seeks to do spiritually); it tells us that suffering has been REDEEMED. It now has purpose, to the extent which we participate in the sufferings of Christ, Our Head (of the Church).
“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the Church[…]”
(Colossians 1:24)
(Side note: this is arguably one of the most startling verse in Scripture, when first found: “What is *lacking* in the all-sufficient, perfect sacrifice of Christ’s afflictions, and how could I [a sinful man] possibly ‘fill up’ what is lacking in it?” The answer is straight-forward, and I found it only a hand-ful of years ago: “The only thing lacking in the sufferings of Christ is OUR PARTICIPATION IN IT. If we are one body, and Christ is our Head, then we should no be surprised that the body suffers along with the Head.)
“Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are reproached for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or a thief, or a wrongdoer, or a mischief-maker; yet if one suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but under that name let him glorify God.” (1 Peter 4:12-16)
To someone who doesn’t know the “internal spiritual landscape” of this, such statements might seem insane; if this physical world is all there is, then all suffering is ultimately meaningless (as is everything else!–and any attempts to “assign” meaning would be nothing more than trying to paste “happy-face stickers” over things which displease us). But if the point of all life is to be united forever to the God Who created us and Who loves us so much as to die rather than lose a chance to save us…? If the point of all life is Heaven, then the sufferings of Earth don’t need to be a stumbling block, anymore.
Do I (with the sufferings I’ve endured) find them pointless? Not necessarily; it depends on whether I use then well, or waste them.
Think of this, as a closing idea. Imagine the person you most love (or ever loved) in the world; if you could change time and history so as to prevent their (future or past) suicide by agreeing to suffer some painful ailment for a month’s time… would you do it? Would you choose to accept the suffering and heartbreak of a friend’s betrayal, if you knew that the acceptance could gain you the miracle of preventing the rape/abuse of a beloved friend? Think on those ideas, and you may get some idea of what I mean by the term “redemptive suffering”… which brings with it the revolutionary (and freeing) idea that suffering need not be pointless; it can be turned to good purpose, when placed in the Hands of a God Who loves you (and me, and all who live).
I’ll try to write more on other ideas, later… but I wanted to get that bit out, first.
Thank you for your views on suffering Paladin, I enjoyed your post and I’ll think about it. I appreciate it.
As an aside, 75+ food allergies??? I knew you had many but not THAT many.
“Putting someone through physical and emotional hell isn’t a valid way to bring new life into the world.”
Oh BluVelvet, You are repeating the well worn-out motto of pro-aborts “it’s all about me.” Nothing else matters it seems. I am sorry you subscribe to this dark view of humanity. It surely is, from my perspective, a lonely way to live…
Paladin, thank you for chiming in on the misery/suffering discussion. Your perspective is full of true reasons one need not discount the contributions these make to our humanity, and as I already stated, make us stronger in the face of adversity. Glad you are recovering well…
Does anyone else know what I mean, by that?
Yes I absolutely do know what you mean by that and it is very painful. It seems I have always known on some level that when The Extreme Loneliness overcomes me, it is because I am not truly at home here on Earth and nothing will 100% satisfy me until I am one with my Beloved.
:) Heart and soul with you there, Praxedes!
One other thought, before this thread closes (I really don’t know quite when or why they do–I’ve seen “younger” threads close far more quickly than this one!)…
Jack, a few hundred comments ago ( :) ), you made mention of confusion as to why the Catholic Church would view, for example, both masturbation and murder as mortal sins… despite the fact that you might see nothing wrong with the first at all (and it doesn’t apparently harm anyone else), while the second is obviously a heinous crime in the eyes of any sane person, religious or not. One word-picture might help, a bit:
Could you imagine my wife, while she was still my fiancee, having a single, aged photograph of her beloved grandmother (who was very instrumental in her life), irreplaceable (save perhaps as a computer scan… which is better than nothing, but isn’t the same as a photo which her Grandmother actually touched and signed)? Try to imagine a comparison:
Case #1: when my fiancee walks into the room, I smile and show her a picture of some famous actor (let’s say Brad Pitt, for the sake of example) which I clipped out of a glossy magazine… and then I tear that photo into bits before her eyes, and set fire to the pieces so that nothing remains but ashes. Now, she could certainly be forgiven for feeling baffled (and a bit uneasy at my small act of violence, which would be very out-of-character), but I doubt very much that she would be deeply hurt by it (she couldn’t care less about Brad Pitt as a public figure… which is why I chose him), and I very much doubt that my relationship with her would suffer any grievous wound. Fair enough?
Case #2: when my fiancee walks into the room, I smile and hold up her single cherished photo of her deceased and beloved grandmother… and then I tear that photo into bits before her eyes, and set fire to the pieces so that nothing remains but ashes. It takes no large amount of imagination to see that she would be terribly hurt, mortified and outraged, and that our relationship would probably suffer a grievous (and possibly lethal) wound as a result; agreed?
So… why the difference? Tactically speaking, all I did in both cases was to destroy a small, coloured piece of paper. Why would one be a matter of indifference, while the other one might shatter our relationship permanently?
The difference lies in how cherished the item is to the person being wounded. And whether anyone understands or not, or whether anyone likes the fact or not, God Almighty cherishes human sexuality above most other powers of the human being; it’s the one time when we are permitted to participate in God’s very act of creating something out of nothing–where God brings into existence a soul which will never be utterly destroyed… it will last forever, whether in Heaven or in Hell. That’s a terrifying responsibility and gift (which we toss about casually, as if the hormonal rush and emotional dynamics were all that mattered), and it’s not too hard to see why God would value it so highly. That, also, is why He is so grieved when it is abused and twisted into sexual sin.
That’s helpful to remember, as well: God is not “down” on sex; He created it, and it is very good, and He made it pleasurable for our sakes. He is only “down” on sexual SIN… because it’s SIN, not because it’s sexual. When we take something which God holds very dear, and we mangle it to suit our own selfish tastes, we should not be surprised when God is terribly grieved and offended.
That, by the way, is the true effect of sin: damage (or death) of our living relationship with God. Venial sins wound the life of God’s grace in us; mortal sins destroy it… just as the destruction of some photos merely wound a relationship with my fiancee (now wife), and some would have destroyed it.
Putting someone through physical and emotional hell isn’t a valid way to bring new life
LOL. That’s how we all got here.
“God Almighty cherishes human sexuality above most other powers of the human being; it’s the one time when we are permitted to participate in God’s very act of creating something out of nothing–where God brings into existence a soul which will never be utterly destroyed… ”
Oh, thanks for this. I didn’t really get why people see sexual sins as so much worse than others (I see some other terrible things humans do as far worse than a lot of sexual sins that don’t involve coercion or force) but I guess that makes a certain amount of sense for the way you guys see it. Thank you for the explanation.