gadgetlady

And black people used to be, BY LAW, 3/5 of a person. Was the law wrong? OF COURSE IT WAS! What the federal government says about ones humanity isn't the be all and end all of truth. It is simply the way policy has developed.

My apologies. I wrote this post quickly and didn't choose my language carefully enough. The point of the post was that there are situations where even people who consider themselves moderate on the issue of abortion would agree that abortion is acceptable in that case. In the case of Beethoven and his parental and familial background, many people today would say Beethoven's mother should not only have had the choice but would have been well advised to abort. And the world would have never had Beethoven. I don't believe that someone who counsels a woman to abort is killing the baby. I believe the abortionist is killing the baby. But I also wonder how many Beethovens have been killed?

Or perhaps because you can't defend your position empirically. "Someone who was born a person". Again, if they are a person when born, what are they before they pass through the birth canal? If a person, they deserve protection. If not a person, please explain why. Further, in the case of a botched abortion -- the dreaded consequence of the baby not being killed by the abortion -- do they at least THEN deserve protection?

Here's the bottom line. Either the thing growing in the womb is a baby, or it's not. If it is, no one has any right to kill it regardless of any social, political, or economic arguments. If it's not, no one has a right to legislate abortion for any reason up until the birth of that baby. There is no in between argument. All in between arguments are based on personal opinion about quality of life, economic sufficiency, when someone "thinks" life begins, and any number of other factors. I am amazed at how many people say "abortion should be legal, but not late-term abortion", or "it shouldn't be used for birth control", or "a woman who's had eight abortions has had too many", or "there are other factors to consider", or "abortion is a difficult decision". My question is, quite simply, "Why?" If the thing growing in the womb isn't a baby (and you must believe it's not a baby to believe it's OK to kill it), why is abortion difficult? If it's just a blob of tissue, why does anyone care? If it has no value in and of itself, why not use abortion as birth control? If it's not a baby, why do we wince at the woman who's had eight abortions? Why does it matter when D&X abortions, also known as partial birth abortions, are performed? Why does it matter that the blob of tissue is delivered, feet-first (how a blob of tissue acquires feet is another question), and then that blob is stabbed at the base of the neck and the brains are sucked out, the head is crushed, and then the entire body is removed from the womb? Why does it matter when saline and prostaglandin abortions are performed and the babies are brutally burned from the inside out? Ask Gianna Jessen, who survived such an abortion, is handicapped because of it, but still loves her life -- ask HER if it matters. If you care, if you believe abortion is a difficult decision for all involved, if you wince and squirm when the issue is raised, then I believe you subconsciously KNOW that the thing growing in the womb is a baby. Very often, people who have had personal experiences with abortion (had one themselves, taken a friend to have one, been the father of an aborted baby, etc.) won't face the reality of the unborn because that would mean they played the part in another human being's death. That's a difficult thing to handle. If my mother told me she had an abortion after (or before!) she had me, I would be very upset. Why? Because I would know that I had a brother or a sister who whose life was snuffed out very early on. I would know that, "there but for the grace of God go I". I would know that it could just as easily have been me or one of my brothers that she aborted. Abortion is the willful ending of a developing life. Just as infanticied is the willful ending of a developing life, and just as Andrea Yates willfully ended her childrens' lives. Just because we can't see the aborted baby, we can't hear their cries, we don't have family portraits including them, and we never held them in our arms doesn't make them any less human. It just makes it easier to do. Just like when Hitler shipped the Jews off to the concentration camps. No one saw the horror of what was going on there, and because of that it was much, much easier to accomplish. She's a child, not a choice. He's a child, not a choice. Choose what you want for dinner. Choose which god you worship. Choose to use birth control so you don’t get pregnant. But don't choose to end someone else's life.

Well, it's been fun guys, but I'm hopping on a plane. Argue amongst yourselves for a few hours or possibly a few days depending on my internet access while I'm gone. Just don't forget that precious child you're arguing about!

Actually, suicide is illegal. And, quite frankly, I don't believe it should be because it is YOUR LIFE and you have a right to do with it what you want. I don't particularly like the idea of suicide and the mess it leaves for others to clean up after you, but I do truly believe that people should have the right to do with their own bodies whatever they want, SO LONG AS IT DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS. I've always wondered -- if a woman goes into a doctor's office and asks them to remove her perfectly healthy arm because she doesn't want it anymore, after all it's HER BODY and HER RIGHT to decide, would they do it? Uh, yeah, NOT. So why when she's asking to remove the baby is it her right? If you told an abortion-minded woman you could remove the unborn baby from her wombs and place it in an incubator and she would have no further contact or responsibility, do you think she'd allow it? In most cases, I sincerely doubt it. She doesn't want to just not be pregnant. She wants to make "the problem" go away. She wants the baby to be dead. If you were able to remove her responsibility and her contact with the baby, she would still have a biological baby "out there" and she'd know it. The only way, she thinks, to ease her mind is to "get rid of it". The problem is, what she's "getting rid of" is another human being. Just like OJ did.

I have to sign for my children to have surgery because they can't make decisions of have input into the treatment. If the doctors operating on the baby make a mistake and the baby ends up with a deformity as a result of their error, I could pretty much GUARANTEE in this day and age of sue-able offenses, the parents would sue on behalf of the child or the child would sue later on in life. Ask a doctor who he's operating on. I have. He told me both mother and baby are patients, but because the mother is the one insured she is called the patient for insurance purposes.

I have backed my "belief" up with empirical data. Where's yours? Believing that life begins when "Daddy" (curious that you call him that - who is he a "Daddy" of if the baby hasn't passed through the birth canal yet?) gets that gleam in his eye is not scientific; there is no separate DNA at that point. Actually, I was pro-life before I was a Christian. I was pro-life the instant I thought about the issue, because it was quite obvious to me that the unborn baby is a separate human being. Research only strengthened my position. You can't decide for yourself when someone else's life is at stake. "If you don't believe in slavery, don't own a slave." What's wrong with that statement? The slave is a human being, and by "owning" one you are denying him his right to life. The law restricts us in all sorts of ways when what we're doing interferes with the life of another person. You can get drunk all you want in the privacy of your home, but if you CHOOSE to get behind the wheel of a car, you endanger others. You can own a gun in your own home, but if you CHOOSE to shoot that gun in the air on the 4th of July, you endanger others. In these situations, I'm sure you wouldn't say "WHO DECIDES". In these situations and many others, the law is set up to protect those who cannot protect themselves. You believe we should continue to arbitrarily exclude the unborn from protection because YOU BELIEVE they are not human beings. I ask again -- WHERE is your empirical data?

Furthermore, doctors regularly operate on babies still in the womb to correct development issues. Who is the patient, if not the baby?

Let's see. From the moment of conception, the baby has a separate circulatory system. By 8 weeks, the baby is fully formed with all major organs, only needing time and nutrition to mature. The baby has a separate brain, separate organs, a separate and often different blood type, and separate and distinct DNA. Seems pretty scientific and empirical to me. How do YOU define human life? By cognition? What does that say about the disabled or the mentally retarded -- or, for that matter, newborns? By the place where the baby lives? Explain to me under what scientific method you can deny the baby is a human being separate from the mother?

I agree that in cases of rape and incest nothing about the unborn baby is different from the cases of women who are just "inconvenienced" by being pregnant. That is why I am in support of no exceptions. Here is the problem with gray areas. We should never, ever have to rely on another human being's judgment as to when we are or are not allowed to live. Otherwise, we open ourselves up to all sorts of judgment calls about the quality of our life. Quite frankly, it makes more sense socially and economically to kill the elderly rather than the young. Nothing's gray for the baby. It's all pretty much black and white for him or her. The woman's "choice" in today's legal system is to have a dead baby or a live baby. Better if she doesn't get pregnant, yes, but once she is those are her choices.

Here's a question for you. A woman is pregnant. The baby's father has syphilis and the mother has tuberculosis. They have had four children. The first child was blind, the second one died, the third child was deaf and dumb, and the fourth child had tuberculosis. The mother is now pregnant with the fifth child but is willing to have an abortion. What would you counsel her to do? If you support abortion in this case, congratulations. You just killed Beethoven.

Here's my point. If you believe that the baby is the woman's body, then you have no right to deny her the ability to have an abortion through the moment of birth. Saying that you believe abortion should be legal or is acceptable but only in some cases -- which many of you have done by saying you think abortion shouldn't be legal late in pregnancy, shouldn't be used as birth control, etc. -- is quite inconsistent. By doing so, you're imposing your beliefs, which are wholly arbitrary, on another. The only consistent, logical positions are that the baby is not fully human and not deserving of any rights until birth, or that the baby IS a human being and deserving of rights at the moment of conception. Anything else imposes your own arbitrary beliefs about when life begins. I believe, and I think science supports my belief, that life begins at conception. My religious beliefs are not at issue, nor are yours, nor should they be. I understand that there are legitimate social issues surrounding abortion. But we do not solve social problems by snuffing out life. Further, the majority of the crack babies, etc. are NOT aborted. The women having abortions are generally middle to upper-middle class and not on drugs. Look at the statistics and you'll see. But in the end, statistics don't matter. We don't kill people because of their lot in life. Unplanned pregnancies are never easy to handle. But there is a right and a wrong, and we can't ignore that just because it's difficult.

About 6 months ago I was at church and noticed a young girl, pregnant, at the foot of a cross (our church has crosses around the room where people can take communion and pray), in tears. I went over to her to give her some comfort for whatever she was going through, prayed with her, and spent about 1/2 hour talking to her. She was out of work, pregnant from a guy she had met on a trip while she was in Chicago (he had no interest in having anything to do with her or the baby), and in just an awful situation. I offered her comfort, assistance in anything that she needed (a job, baby items, etc.), and just basically sat with her and listened. She didn't ask for anything but knew how to get a hold of me if she had a need. Fast forward to today. I've been looking for her at church but haven't seen her since our first meeting. My husband left the service to use the bathroom, and when he came back he told me she was out in the hallway with a beautiful baby girl. I went out to see her and she was absolutely glowing. She was transformed, so full of joy that she was literally shining. Her darling baby girl was 10 weeks old and beautiful. The mom was doing so well it astounded me. The father of the baby still wants nothing to do with either of them, but that didn't dampen her joy. After we chatted for a while and I renewed my offer to help -- this time with babysitting or anything she needed -- I started to think about what could have happened to that baby just 10 weeks and one day ago. She could have been brutally ripped from her mother's womb and dismembered. It reminded me of this discussion, that most people don't realize that abortion is legal through all nine months of pregnancy, and that even early abortions are a destructive force in the life of the mother and most certainly in the life of the baby that is killed. With life there is hope, and what is an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy often develops into a beautiful baby who is very much wanted.

I'm confused. Why do you need the government to be generous with your money? If you have a few extra bucks and you'd rather share it to have less poverty in your midst, why don't you just do so? Sponsor a poor family, pay the medical insurance payments for someone who can't; there are numerous possibilites. Plus, without having the money siphoned through a bureaucracy, more will go to the poor if you just give it directly.

I had the same problems before my surgery: bronchitis and a cold had it postponed for a month. As aggravating as it is, it's better to be healthy when going under the knife. And I, too, am a total pain wimp. I'd put it at a 3 or maybe a 4 on a scale of 1 to 10. My c-sections were more like a 7 or 8. HTH!

My point about 50 years ago is that viability changes based on medical technology, and to say it's OK to kill an unborn baby at, say, 32 weeks 50 years ago when that baby would be considered viable at a much earlier time in 2006 is discriminating against a baby based on the year he is concieved. And I never complained that people want too many kids or people who don't want kids. I think people should have as many kids as they want, and I don't have a problem with people who don't want any. I just have a problem with people who kill kids because they don't want any. First, I believe it is entirely possible to change peoples' minds with fact and a good, solid addressing of the argument. I had my mind changed as an adult on the issue of the death penalty (it was involvement with the pro-life movement that changed my mind). There are many, many examples of people who used to be in favor of abortion but changed their minds as adults; e.g. Ronald Reagan, Henry Hyde, Bernard Nathanson, numerous clinic workers and abortionists, etc. Second, while you are entitled to your opinion, you are not entitled to run roughshod over the rights of other people in the pursuance of your opinion. If you don't like beans, don't eat them If you don't believe in Christianity, don't go to church If you don't believe in tattoos, don't get one If you don't believe in piercings, don't get one If you don't believe in slavery, don't own a slave . . . Wait, there's a problem there! Your belief in tattoos is your own and you can choose to remain uninked for your entire life without hurting another person. But your belief in slavery directly affects the rights of another human being. AS DOES ABORTION. And when the rights of another person are threatened, the government and other citizens have the right to intervene. Heck, the government intervenes in situations where people are choosing to do something with their body and yet someone's life is not directly in danger (e.g. prostitution)! I agree, again in cases when the rights and the physical life of another person are not threatened. But when you posit that one of your rights is to kill another human being, whether that human being be old, young, disabled, able-bodied, wanted, unwanted, or tattooed and pierced, you are just plain not within your rights. Do neo-Nazi's have a right to march? Of course they do. Do they have a right to believe what they believe? Of course they do. Do they have a right to lynch? Yeah, that's where I draw the line. Believe what you want. But don't kill other people in the furtherance of your beliefs.

The point is that when you use a word that's from another language, you should define it. There are many of the above words or phrases that most American people wouldn't understand. When one uses a word that other people don't understand, one is often compelled to supply a definition. The definition of "fetus" is "unborn offspring" or "unborn child" or "unborn baby". Why do people who support abortion bristle when the term "unborn baby" is used? Because they are trying to deny the humanity of the object that's growing in the womb, and that's a heck of a lot easier when you call it by a Latin name.

So 50 years ago a pre-term baby was a human being many weeks later than a pre-term baby is a human being in 2006?

OK, so fetus = "unborn young". Therefore I choose to use the term "unborn baby" instead of the Latin, which so few people speak.

How much Latin do you use in your other daily conversations? Fetus is Latin for "little one" or "unborn child". I prefer to speak English because then people don't get confused by language and interpretation issues.

Why? At what point in the development of the unborn baby does abortion go from being OK to being "absolutely wrong"?

Why not? Why?

I had both toe and nail polish on. It was a light color, though, and somewhat translucent.

Personally, my husband and I have incredible sex, as often as possible. And when I don't want to get pregnant, we use birth control. But if I did accidentally get pregnant, I wouldn't knock off the baby. I have no interest in being in your bed or your body. When a mother is pregnant, however, the baby is not her body. It's the baby's body.