gadgetlady

I love my Magic Bullet. I bought it in June of 2005 and have had no problems whatsoever. I use it every day for my shake, and then sometimes for other stuff, too. I got rid of my huge, monstrous blender and haven't looked back :-)

You're right. I went back and looked. You didn't say it, you implied it. My apologies. And no, I'm not paranoid at all. Have a great night tonight and day tomorrow, everyone! I'm off to go fishing!

I think I'm the underachiever in the crowd :-( I'm stuck at 30-35 lbs., but in my defense I've been on 5 vacations since I was banded - 3 cruises, one of which was part of a month-long vacation in Europe, and 2 all-inclusive resorts. So in part I'm happy because I've lost and haven't gained; I know my lack of spectacular results have to do with eating whatever I want (albeit smaller amounts than I used to) and very little exercise. 2007 is a much slower travel year for me so I'm gearing up to lose more then. Congrats to everyone on the tremendous results!

Wow! I go away scuba diving for one day and this whole thread changes! Pam, I am very much impressed with your calm, thorough presentation of the Gospel. Kudos to you. I don't know if I could add anything except one thing, to whoever it was that commented that because there are more Christians than non-Christians around the world, therefore the Christians can't be right. The quantity of people who believe in something doesn't always determine correctness. Just speak with Galileo or Columbus about that.

I'd like to comment about the judgment and damnation issue. I have tried to be sensitive on the issue of abortion because I know there are women on this board who have had abortions and regret it. I have personally worked with innumerable women who have suffered the after-effects of abortion. I have never said women who have abortions are damned to hell, I don't believe they are, and in fact I know many of them don't believe in hell. On the issue of judging others, I would like to remind everyone here that judgment is a fine line. How many here believe what OJ did was wrong? Are you judging him if you believe that? Of course you are. Do I believe abortion takes another person's life? Yes, I do. Do I believe that women who have abortions have killed their children? Yes, I do. Do I run around shouting at them that they're murderers? No, I do not. In fact, I try to help them or, if I can't help them, find them help. Now I'm sure a lot of you are going to judge ME for what I've said. I am pro-women, too. I believe women have been sold a bill of goods, that they've been told they can't be productive members of society if they have children without having certain other things in their lives established. I see society judging young mothers, or women who have had a lot of children, or women in college who are pregnant. I see whole societies that so value male children that the women abort whenever they're pregnant with females. Not only am I pro-women, I am also pro-unborn-women.

You reference an article quoting ONE researcher? I could bombard you with research to the contrary. The researcher you cite bases his assertion on the claim that the cortex is needed for the baby to feel pain, but science has well established that even with complete removal of the cortex, the sensation of pain is not eliminated. So if removal of the cortex does not equal no pain, then why would the cortex need to be fully developed for pain to be felt?

I know a woman who has 3 sons and desperately wants a daughter but is done bearing children. She aborted her first child. I also know a man who has 4 daughters and desperately wants a son but his wife is done bearing children. His wife aborted their first child. He regularly tells me with much sorrow that, "I killed my boy." But the saddest situation of any is when a woman aborts and from the abortion becomes sterile (yes, it happens). In that case, she killed the only child she ever had.

Abortion is a particularly brutal surgical procedure. Those in favor of abortion generally don't want to talk about it. Saline abortion is extremely painful for the baby. And the mother is generally unaware what she will be going through, until she starts to feel the thrashing about of the baby as he or she is drinking the saline solution and being burned to death. Here is a full description for you: "Saline abortions may be given after the 16th week and must be given after the 20th week. A large needle is inserted through the abdominal wall of the mother and into the baby's amniotic sac. A very concentrated salt solution is then injected into the amniotic Fluid. The baby breathes this in through his mouth and nose. It enters his stomach. He begins struggling and convulsing. The salt burns the skin all over his body so badly that it becomes an ugly red. His nostrils, mouth, throat and gastrointestinal tract are burned by the salt. All this terrible suffering lasts a full hour. If not successful in killing the infant, another injection of salt is given. If successful—the baby is expelled as a still birth. The mother goes into labor about a day later and delivers a beet-red baby that was scalded to death by salt. Any nurse who works in an aborting hospital can tell you of a significant number of these babies that were born alive. Then the doctor has a problem what to do with them. He may choose to strangle them to death, but most of the time they are thrown into a nearby pail and kindly permitted to cry themselves to death. The suffering they have endured throughout the experience is terrific. The salt had not killed them, but neglect in the pail soon does. There are records of infants who have survived saline abortions and spent the first weeks of their life outside the womb in intensive care." Of course, the other methods of abortion are no less gruesome. I encourage everyone who supports this procedure to read up on how the whole thing works and on fetal development. Look at pictures of unborn babies, both in utero and after abortions. Watch "The Silent Scream", an ultrasound video of an actual first trimester abortion, where the baby tries to dodge the suctioning machine over and over; his heartbeat doubles in rate as he tries to do this, and when he's finally caught and is being dismembered, his mouth opens wide in a silent scream (silent because without air in the uterus -- he breathes amniotic fluid -- his screams cannot be heard). Abortionists regularly talk about making sure they have retrieved all of the "products of conception" after an abortion. Even after a first trimester abortion, they do this by counting. Two arms, two legs, a torso, a head. Amazing little "blob of tissue" that it is, it has two arms, two legs, a torso, and a head.

Alexandra, I appreciate your calm, even-keeled input in this discussion. It's hard to respond to some people when they don't present legitimate points of discussion, but rather are condescending, bigoted, and attempt to belittle rather than rationally explain their position. Can you tell me why you would very likely not have an abortion again?

As to the pain that the unborn baby feels, at eight weeks the neuro-anatomic structures are present. To feel pain, ahuman being needs a sensory nerve to feel the pain and then send the message about the pain to the thalmus, and also motor nerves to send a message back to the area where the pain is being inflicted. All of those necessary requirements are present at 8 weeks. Furthermore, if you stick an 8-week unborn baby with a pin in the palm of his hand, he opens his mouth and pulls his hand away, just like a newborn would do (of course, because the newborn is breathing air instead of amniotic Fluid, the opening of the mouth in the newborn is accompanied by crying or screaming). All of this is also accompanied by an increase in the baby's heart rate, and all of it is consistent with what happens in born infants, toddlers, adolescents, pre-teens, tweens, teens, adults, and the elderly.

Laurend specifically asked not to be attacked. I wanted to make sure she didn't feel attacked. That's why I said that. Why don't you think it's right? I understand you're saying everyone should have the choice. But why don't you believe it's right?

Sure, I'll take that one. The youngest baby to survive outside of the womb was at 20 weeks, although I thought I read a report recently about one surviving at 18 or 19 weeks. Abortion is legal through all 9 months of pregnancy. The babies were still human beings before that 18-20 weeks, though.

In 1967, a group of medical professionals, biological scientists, and authorities in the fields of law, ethics, and the social sciences convened to determined when life begins and when an unborn child becomes a human being. This was their conclusion: "The majority of our group could find no point in time between the union of sperm and egg, or at least the blastocyst stage [shortly after fertilization, when twinning might occur] and the birth of the infant at which point we could say that this was not a human life. The changes occurring between implantation, a six-weeks embryo, a six months fetus, a one week-old child, or a mature adult are merely stages of development and maturation." These scientists decided by a vote of 19 to 1.

If I choose to define a black person as 3/5 of a person, would you disagree? Would you defend that black person if I wanted to make him a slave or lynch him? I can define whatever I want that applies to my own life however I want to apply it. But when my definition impacts another person, I no longer have the right to do whatever I want. Neither is an infant or a toddler. We are all developing human beings, some of us in the early stages of development, some in the later. How does science agree?

If someone murders a pregnant woman, they can be held for two counts of murder (or three if the woman was carrying twins). So let's see . . . in some cases, the LAW doesn't agree that the fetus is not a person.

Sorry, you're wrong. Saline abortions don't result in "fetal remains" (parts of the dead baby) being left in the womb. In saline abortions, the baby is burned from the inside out (from swallowing the poison injected into the amniotic sac) and delivered, entact, just dead (or at least that was the goal; some of them survived). Further, the women having saline abortions felt every flailing movement of the baby as it was dying. Prostaglandin abortions cause the woman to go into early labor, thus delivering the baby at whatever stage he or she has developed to. In many of these cases, as well, the baby is born alive. Neither procedure impacted the wholeness of the baby's body, and therefore didn't cause "parts" (again, parts of WHAT? of a PERSON) to be left inside the womb.

OK, I'll say it again. My stand on abortion has nothing to do with my religion. I was pro-life before I was a Christian. There are plenty of pro-life people who are not Christians, and in fact many athiests are pro-life. Ever heard of Nat Hentoff? I'd be surprised if you hadn't, beause he is a very well known defender of civil liberties. He's been a writer for the Village Voice (not exactly a conservative publication LOL!) for many years and has been an outspoken liberal voice on many social issues. He frequently aligns himself with the ACLU (but not on issues of abortion and disabilities). But several years ago he studied the abortion issue and became pro-life. In the late '80s and early '90s, when he first "came out" as a pro-lifer, he was blackballed by liberals. He is an athiest and in no way does his reasoning on his theology, or lack thereof. It is very easy to disrespect and dismiss what I have to say about abortion by calling it a religious viewpoint. While religious people weigh in on the issue in strong numbers, it is not my religion that persuades me that life begins at conception. It is science. For those interested in reading more about Nat Hentoff's conversion to pro-life, go to http://www.swiss.ai.mit.edu/~rauch/nvp/consistent/hentoff.html or, in his own words, http://swissnet.ai.mit.edu/%7Erauch/nvp/consistent/indivisible.html. It's good reading.

One other thing. I've been accused of "trying to make people feel guilty" about their abortions. I don't know how I could accomplish that. If abortion is a morally neutral act and perfectly acceptable, why would anyone feel guilty about it? If someone comes up to me in a parking lot and starts jumping up and down about how I should feel guilty for purchasing a blue car instead of a green one, they can argue until they're blue in the face . . . I'm never going to feel guilty about it because there's nothing wrong with it. I will never feel guilty about choosing to get banded, because there's nothing wrong with it. The personal convictions of the green-car-advocate or the no-surgery-is-legitimate advocate don't affect me because I don't share those convictions. So if someone feels guilty over having an abortion, it's not me making them feel that way. It is the act of abortion that births the guilt. If they truly don't think there's anything wrong with what they did, they won't feel guilty. Period.

I've said it over and over and I will say it again. Throw religion out the window. My personal belief about whether the baby has a soul is irrelevant, as is yours. Look at the facts. How do we define life? How do we define the END of life? How should we define the BEGINNING of life? What does science tell us? What does science say is happening in the womb? What does science say when there are two brains in place, two circulatory systems in place? If under any other circumstances you told someone there were two brains in a room, they would naturally assume you meant there were two people. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Black people used to be defined as 3/5 of a person. It's history. It happened. And it was used to deny them their rights. Until they were defined differently, their rights were not intact. Were they indeed 3/5 of a person until the law changed? Of course not! They were 5/5 of a person at all times, but they didn't enjoy the rights of being a full person in the eyes of the law until the law changed. We don't define humanness by geographical location, economic status, health, or religious viewpoint. When we do, we open ourselves to gross discrimination. And the worst form of discrimination is when one person kills another because they don't think the other person is quite as human as they are.

Thank you for being honest, laurend. I really appreciate it. Most people won't 'fess up to the internal struggle because they're afraid of where it will lead them intellectually. You are at the crux of the issue. You are anti-smoking and anti-drinking while pregnant, but not anti-scalpel. Please understand, I am not ridiculing you or attacking you. I'm pointing out the dichotomy. And I completely understand why you struggle, because there is inconsistency in many of our belief systems and in the law.

Nope, you're right. None of us participating in this debate are dead. Does that mean they should have? Or that because they did, it therefore devalues their lives? No, not really. It's just that the full grown parental trees are stronger. Just because a weaker being may not survive something doesn't mean he or she is less deserving of survival, or that we should deliberately kill that being.

Um, yeah, that's what I said. "instrumental or manual conversion of the fetus to a footling breech" = delivering the baby, feet-first. "breech extraction of the body excepting the head; and partial evacuation of the intracrainal contents . . ." (intracranial contents = the stuff in the head = the brains) ". . . of the fetus to effect vaginal delivery of a dead but otherwise intact fetus" = stabbing the baby at the base of the neck and sucking the brains out with a suction device to ensure that an intact live baby is not delivered. See how easy it is to take terminology and define it? And clearly it needed to be done, as is evidenced by the earlier question I answered about D&X. Not everyone knows what it is; hopefully they're reading, and now they do. It's a lovely little procedure that was invented because too many saline and prostaglandin abortions ended with the baby being born alive. When you suction the brains out of the head, that doesn't happen. I think Carlene said this earlier, that generally abortion is not necessary to save the life of the mother. I marvel at the AMA's use of the term "sacrifice". When one removed a tumor, it is not called "sacrificing the tumor." The word "sacrifice" has a whole other feel, almost like, {gasp} the deliberate killing of a human being.

And yet, despite all of your ridiculing, you still refuse to define it. Are you afraid of the definition? How about if we start at the other end? What constitutes the end of life? Absence of brain waves, a heart beat? What is the medical definition? Perhaps we should apply that to the beginning of life, too?

You have yet to define fetus for me. All you say is "it's a fetus, it's a fetus, it's a fetus." But exactly WHAT is a fetus? If I were a fifteen-year-old or a foreigner who had never heard the term and asked you what it meant, how would you define it? A newborn human being is called an infant. A two-year-old human being is called a toddler. A twelve-year-old is called a pre-teen. They are all, nevertheless, human beings. I personally don't believe we can own other human beings. I don't own my kids and I never did.

No. I mean D & X. D & C's are done earlier in the pregnancy. D & X was developed because a high enough percentage of saline and prostaglandin late term abortions ended with a live baby, so they needed to come up with something that ensured death. Stabbing at the base of the neck and sucking out the brains definitely kills the baby, every time.