BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: KB in Iowa
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 03:18 PM

The problem with education is that there are many folks who believe that if kids are told about the options they will start having sex. The way to avoid this is to not put ideas in the minds of the impressionable young folks.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 03:19 PM

do you stay as the emotional/physical punchbag in a pretty house, or do you get the hell out and live a happier life in a crappy flat?

Graham, I know you are trying to understand. I can assure you, "a pretty house" has nothing to do with whether a woman stays or goes. It has to do with the complete traumatisation of the woman, physically AND mentally. She cannot fathom leaving, it seems impossible and deadly. In one case, a non-fiction book I am editing, the husband made sure she knew he would kill her and their children if she tried to leave; he even threatened to eat them. The one time she did get away to stay with friends, he tried to burn their house down with them all in it.

In such situations, a woman is not thinking of a "happier life" she is thinking of just surviving and, usually, because she has no self-esteem left, she cannot think beyond making herself more compliant, prettier, less demanding, etc. in order to please him in the hopes he will stay nice and not go into some horrible rage and beat her and the kids once again, maybe even kill them. Clear thinking is rare in such instances and murders of abused spouses happen more often just after they have left the abusive relationship than any other time.


Re' my earlier suggestion about vasectomies, I was being facetious, of course, but it does remind me of the old adage, "If men could get pregnant, abortions would be a constitutional right" or something like that.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 04:09 PM

Hmmmmmmm? I haven't heard any Dem candadates say they are for abortion...

For choice, yes...

One can personally be anti-abortion and politically pro-choice...

There is no conflict here and I don't see why the Post printed this op-ed since its authors totally misrepresent the truth....

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 09:49 PM

Many women reluctantly feel it necessary to have abortions because in their circumstances pregnancy is a major problem.

Whether someone is "pro-life" or "pro-choice", there is a duty to seek to ensure that there is help available that can change these circumstances. That is a duty that is common to both positions, where these are held sincerely.

Where this duty is not recognised both positions still have a great deal in common - a shared hypocrisy.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: GUEST,I'm just curious
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 10:14 PM

Where has the myth that **all** people who claim to be pro-life are also pro-death penalty and pro-war? "Pro-lifers" I've known cover the full spectrum of beliefs and opinions on those issues. What about the myth that **all** pro-life people never lift a hand to help pregnant women? I've known quite a few 'pro-lifers" who've run, volunteerd for, or at least financially supported social service agencies for pregnant women in trouble; who have taken troubled pregnant women into their homes and supported them until they were able to manage independently. I've known "pro-lifers" who've adopted kids out of foster care etc, etc. There's probably more diversity of opinions attitudes and activities in the pro-life movement than in either major US political party.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 10:37 PM

I can't answer your question, Just curious, but I can tell you that even just calling themselves "pro-life" invites that sort of thing, because it implies that everyone who is pro-abortion is "anti-life". The anti-abortion people need to start calling themselves by another term if they don't want to all be pigeon-holed as intolerant hypocrites.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 10:40 PM

Even Pat Robertson supports China's forced abortion policy.

However he has a differnet take on South Carolina.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: CarolC
Date: 23 Jan 08 - 10:41 PM

I would like to rephrase that...

I can't answer your question, Just curious, but I can tell you that even just calling themselves "pro-life" invites that sort of thing, because it implies that everyone who is pro-abortion or even pro-choice is "anti-life". The anti-abortion people need to start calling themselves by another term if they don't want to all be pigeon-holed as intolerant hypocrites.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 08:14 AM

The terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" are both terms intentionally adopted for polemic purposes, which is normal enough practice in many situations where there is disagreement and debate. For example in the names of political parties, such as Democratic and Republican.

The point being to adopt a label representing a positive and generally shared value, so putting the opponents on the wrong foot, by implying that they do not share that value. It's a debating trick.

"Pro-choice" does not in fact involve being anti-life as such, and "pro-life" does not involve being anti-choice as such. What such labels do in practice imply is a more restricted definition of, respectively, valid life and valid choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 12:53 PM

Pro-choice is a term that people use to indicate that while they, themselves are not necessarily pro-abortion, and may even be anti-abortion, they believe that a woman should have a right to make that choice herself. It is in no way used for polemic or political purposes by many who use it.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:36 PM

It really is a bit more complicated than that. No one would recognise an absolute and unfettered right of individual choice in all matters. The limiting factor would be whether the individual's choice impinges on another.

In relation to abortion the disagreement is based on a different interpretation of whether this applies in this situation, with the two sides having "a more restricted definition of, respectively, valid life and valid choice".

Both sides can reasonably claim that they are in favour both of a right to life and a right to choose - just not of an absolute right in either case.

Moreover there is an ambiguity in the term "right to choose" as generally used. It is not always clear whether people use it in a purely legal sense, or in a moral sense. It is in principle possible to regard abortion as something which is wrong in all circumstances, and yet to believe that, on balance, it may be futile and damaging to seek to prohibit it by law - and a diversion from more effective ways of damage limitation.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:49 PM

Possibly, McGrath, but you can't expect people to explain all of that every time they try to tell someone what their stance is on abortion. Some times they might have that opportunity, but a lot of the time they have to say it using the fewest number of words.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:58 PM

And that's why terms like "pro-choice" and "pro-life" get used - for convenience, and also, it seems to me, as a way of shaping the debate (which is what I mean by "polemical")

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 01:59 PM

Pro-choice can be used in a way that is not polemical. Pro-life cannot.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: Slag
Date: 24 Jan 08 - 02:58 PM

One of the problems in this discussion, not just on the 'Cat but the national discussion, is that we try to speak from general principles and if nothing were more clear it is that every case is unique and is a personally intense experience. There is a price to be paid for foolishness and in the case of unwanted pregnancies it is usually a very high price indeed. Again, a generality. Granted, some folks are wanton in their sexual conduct and an abortion is not that big of a deal but I suspect that is a low number. I believe in the general principle of abstinence but I am not deluded as to the power of the urge and the moment.

On the purely biological front any scientist, unencumbered by political or religious pressure would tell you unequivocally that life begins at the moment of conception. If this were not true there would be no higher life forms, that is, unless we could bud or have a perfect parthenogenesis. Life, if anything in the empirical world, is a CONTINUATION. And that path of continuation has conception as it's key nexus.* That is a point that needs not enter the debate, in my honest opinion.

Some have said that those having abortions are the very ones whose DNA should be removed from the gene pool. Quite callous and it overlooks all the circumstances which have brought the woman to such a crisis. Abortion is the one topic where anecdotal evidence rules the discussion. It IS what it is about; individuals in life-circumstances faced with a horrendous choice. I don't know the answer. There is no answer. Only a case by case evaluation and an answer to one's own conscience or God.

I think everyone with any moral fortitude is "Pro-life". We love our lives to some extent. That's why we keep hanging around on this little mud ball we call Earth. Some more so than others. And some find their pregnancy the make or break issue. Then it is certainly a case of choice over general principle. Instead of a debate or general condemnations we should stress education and we should provide all the help and incentive we can for those in a bad situation. Good Samaritans all. That's my ideal. It's a dream, of course. But we all do what we can.

The French have a saying (never got around to learning French), it translates "To understand all is to forgive all". I believe that is a good starting point.

* You know me. I love words. The suffix "'cept" is a great little word-part which means "to grasp". Concept, recept, precept, percept, accept, intercept, etc. Carries a lot of meaning. Try substituting the word "grasp" whenever you see it in a word and it intensifies your congrasp of the meaning.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: GUEST,Keinstein
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 10:42 AM

On the purely biological front any scientist, unencumbered by political or religious pressure would tell you unequivocally that life begins at the moment of conception.

No, life began, probably just the once, a couple of billion years ago. All that happens at conception is that selections of two genomes are combined to make a new set. Both the sperm and the ovum were already living, and the combination stays living afterwards- in an altered state. I find it wonderful to think that I am a living descendant of that first life- every one of my DNA molecules is a copy (very imperfect!) of the very first one.

But this has no relevance whatsoever to abortion, which is about people, not DNA.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: Greg F.
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 10:51 AM

On the purely biological front any scientist, unencumbered by political or religious pressure would tell you unequivocally that life begins at the moment of conception.

Complete Bollocks.

Subject: RE: BS: Interesting Viewpoint on Abortion
From: Slag
Date: 25 Jan 08 - 08:17 PM

Well Greg F, that certainly is an opinion.