Abortion Discussion

[Uncle Siggy]

Wow, I hope you taught your children better than your parents taught you.

What parents teach their kids is one thing, what the kids learn from their friends is something else. Since you were once a kid I would think you would know that, if not you will learn it when you have kids of your own...

 

[Cearbhall]

What parents teach their kids is one thing, what the kids learn from their friends is something else.

That's when you're supposed to use what you learned from your parents.

Of course, parents aren't always right, and people don't always grow up to have the same set of beliefs and values as their parents, which is ok. But I would hope that someone who is almost grown would know better than to say something like what you described above.

Since you were once a kid I would think you would know that, if not you will learn it when you have kids of your own...

I certainly wasn't shaming sexually active women with derogatory language.

 

[PapaZoom]

@Archivist I was unable to access the specific links you shared. I was able to find some information however most of it was not helpful. Here's what I've gotten thus far.

http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1062&context=yjlf

This article deals mainly with domestic violence and how it leads to battered women staying in relationships as servants to the abuser. Hence involuntary servitude. It doesn't even mention abortion except to reference another article. While it does speak of rape (79 references to rape) it does so in the context of violence towards women. It specifically mentions marital rape as an act of involuntary servitude. I'm not seeing the relevance of pregnancy to the issue of involuntary servitude. I do see how in the context of battered women, those situation can fall under the definition of involuntary servitude. Involuntary servitude is likened to slavery. It's a huge stretch to suggest that pregnancy is a form of slavery.

In my opinion, the idea that abortion should be allowed in cases of rape because a woman shouldn't be forced into involuntary servitude is just a huge stretch. Saying that pregnancy is like slavery amounts to a cheap rhetorical trick. A lawyer's slight of hand.

Pregnancy from rape accounts for less than 1% of all abortions. If abortion were granted in the cases of rape, incest,
and life of the mother, would you then agree to outlaw all other cases for abortion? If not, why then is the rape card necessary? If I could get a bill signed that would ban all abortions except for rape, incest, and life of the mother, I'd sign it. 98% of all abortion would be eliminated immediately. Would you support such a bill?

I doubt that rape is really the issue here. It's just a decoy. If you are one of those who wants women to have the right to kill the unborn at any time for any reason, then what difference does it make if it was via rape or consensual sex? Bringing rape into the discussion is just an appeal to emotion.

So for the sake of discussion, we'll grant your argument the rape exception. Now we're left with the other 98% give or take. Let's outlaw those then. Victims of rape and incest can have abortions. That's it. For everyone else it's a crime.

Rape problem solved and millions of babies lives saved. All in one post.

 

[KCfromNC]

It seems to be much easier for some to be immoral than it does to be moral, hence people going down the path of least resistance...

I guess it is also easier to demonize a group of people if you pretend they're evil rather than taking the time to try and understand if they have a legitimate opinion.

 

[ToddNotTodd]

It definitely IS easier to be immoral. Remember what we called girls who 'do it' in school?

I remember the Christian boys calling them "God's gift".

Personally, I just thanked them profusely.

 

[Archivist]

@Archivist I was unable to access the specific links you shared.

Sorry. I think I said when I posted that they were available in paper or on Hein Online in a good law library. Unfortunately much legal info is not available to the general public in free sites. We have free public-access here but you have to come on-site toi use it. Very busy at work (becsue of it being a short week) and at church (because of Holy Week) so you will not see much of me on CF thsi week. Will try to get back to this thread next week.

 

[Root of Jesse]

I remember the Christian boys calling them "God's gift".

Personally, I just thanked them profusely.

I did the same, then, but looking back, I know it was wrong. This whole thing about Catholics, or Christians, being anti-pleasure is totally off base. The fantasy about girls in white button-down shirts and plaid skirts, decidedly a Catholic school girl uniform, is telling, and as someone else said, many who live the Catholic faith fully have many more than 2.1 children. If there was no pleasure involved, I can guarantee that there wouldn't be so many.

 

[Root of Jesse]

That's not how the unemployment rate works.

Regardless, the point being made was that statistics can be interpreted by anyone, incorrectly, to the bias they represent.

In my case my unemployment rate was very small, that doesn't mean that THE unemployment rate is small. Just because you have stats showing a rise in temperature doesn't mean that global warming is caused by mankind. People read into statistics what they want to. Which was the point.

 

[Root of Jesse]

The point of using the ultimate in birth control is not (ever) to have a child, to avoid birthing another child that would have to be cared for until it can care for itself and surely an artificial womb doing that without real parenting, even if it could, would never be desirable. Plus the world certainly does not need another person any time soon to further denude it.

So the world is here for your convenience, not for God's...and having children is at your convenience, not because God wants it that way...brilliant.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Yah right, you ever get an egg that had a bit of blood in it? Probably that means it was fertilized.
Actually you would never be so foolish as to take the egg (with a little blood in it) and roast it like a chicken. You would never treat it like a chicken, nor should you ever treat it like a chicken. Because it is certainly NOT a chicken.

Like I say, most people can tell the difference between a chicken and an egg, and an egg though it may be some way along in the gestation process from when it was fertilized, would never pass as a chicken in commerce or otherwise.
If it's in an intact shell it's still an egg, and like you at one point correctly characterized it, a "fertilized egg...."
(Just like if a fetus is still in the womb it is not a child, in case you didn't notice.)

Yeah, they can tell the differences. So what? What about the similarities? A chicken egg will never be a pig. Or an orchid. It's a chicken, as an acorn is an oak tree, as an embryo is a human.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Better be sure to not cut off any cancer!

Once again ignoring what's right, and focusing on what's wrong.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Because it has human DNA, just like the fetus!
I wouldn't mind cutting it off, but it seems there are others around that if they wanted to be consistent, would never remove a cancer.

Better save all those skin cells that keep falling off, too, eh? And hairs! Cancer or skin or hair cells aren't what makes a human human.

 

[Root of Jesse]

This will no doubt amaze you, but you are not "most people"!

REALLY????

 

[Root of Jesse]

No. I call 'sex education' sex education.

The rest of your assertion is easily disproven garbage.

When sex education consists of showing children how to put a condom on a banana, and declaring that abortifacient birth control pills are the way to safe sex, and ignoring that the best birth control possible is to keep his pants on and her knees closed, I don't call it education, at all. Disprove that.

 

[redleghunter]

When sex education consists of showing children how to put a condom on a banana, and declaring that abortifacient birth control pills are the way to safe sex, and ignoring that the best birth control possible is to keep his pants on and her knees closed, I don't call it education, at all. Disprove that.

All leading to....

 

[AirPo]

Regardless, the point being made was that statistics can be interpreted by anyone, incorrectly, to the bias they represent.

In my case my unemployment rate was very small, that doesn't mean that THE unemployment rate is small. Just because you have stats showing a rise in temperature doesn't mean that global warming is caused by mankind. People read into statistics what they want to. Which was the point.

That doesn't mean the statistics are wrong.

 

[Root of Jesse]

No, lets air the garbage.

Papal encyclicals, Abstinence Only, any number of religious figures decrying the instruction of youth in sexual matters.

All garbage.

My colleague CivilWarBuff might actually agree with you about Papal encyclicals. But one by Paul VI was, in FACT, downright prophetic. You should read Humanae Vitae.
As for Abstinence Only, why wouldn't you want to teach the truth, right up front? Condoms fail, pills fail, IUD's fail, all contraception has a failure rate. Abstinance's only weakness is that of you, personally. You don't have to rely on some Quality Control person to determine a product's success, you only have to build your own character and will. If you're willing to discipline yourself to work out four hours a day to be good in your sport or dance or karate or music, why would you not be willing to be disciplined in other areas of your life? The above is the outline for lesson 1. Lessons 2- whatever can be about how an egg gets fertilized, and what happens during gestation, at what point the brain begins working, etc. There would also be room for lessons about what to do if your discipline fails. Including carrying the baby to term and placing him/her for adoption.
I am the product of someone's failure of discipline, Steve. My adoptive parents also chose to adopt another product of someone's failure of discipline. I don't know if my birth mother succeeded in life or not, but she succeeded, in God's eyes.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Then what's the problem with using birth control to enjoy sex without unwanted consequences? I'd think that someone so opposed to abortion would be very happy to see people use less drastic options.

You'd think wrong. Sex has a dual purpose, as God designed it. Pleasure AND procreation. To have one without the other is subverting the will of God.

No, just pointing out that many anti-abortion arguments are simplistic appeals to emotion which ignore the real complexities of the issue. It is one of the many reasons that these ideas lead to bad public policy.

And many of society's reasons for not promoting solutions are simplistic, too.
Bad public policy is promoting abortion and birth control as the first step. Neither is the first step. Teaching why sex should wait until marriage is the first step. A later, much later, chapter should be what to do if things don't work, and your discipline fails. As Christians, we don't, mostly, look down on someone, just because they made a mistake. But when they do something to cover it up and hide it, that makes it worse-and that's when the ca-ca hits the fan...

 

[Root of Jesse]

That doesn't mean the statistics are wrong.

I never said they were wrong. I said they're interpreted wrong.

 

[Root of Jesse]

In the case of a rape victim, it is the pregnant woman's body that has been violated. If she wants to carry the fetus to term that is her choice. If she is forced to carry the fetus to term against her will that is involuntary servitude, a violation of her Constitutional rights.

I have asked this before but have yet to receive an answer: Do you favoir involuntay servitude in other cases, or just in cases involving rape victims?

So committing another wrong makes it all ok. Got it.