gadgetlady

It's not semantics. It's synonyms. Fetus is another word for unborn baby. For the same reason you don't say "I just attended a fetus shower" or "I just attended a parasite shower." You say "I just attended a baby shower." Again, if children are abused and neglected because they are unwanted and abortion cures the problem of unwanted children, why is there still abuse and neglect. Look at the statistics. There is no correlation between unwanted pregnancies and abuse. Interesting way to re-phrase "she's going to kill me."

I bought an eliptical a few weeks ago and have worked up to 15 minutes (which is HUGE for me -- I hate exercise), but the last two days I discovered at about 12 minutes that my toes started to tingle and my feet are falling asleep. Anyone else had this happen?

I used a stairmaster years and years ago -- those things rock! They're also very difficult I tried shifting my weight to my heels today and it helped a little. Of course I also increased my time by 5 minutes and resistence by one level, so by the time I was finished I was still toe-tingly. I don't want to take a break in the middle because I might never go back.

Interesting, DonnaB, I had the exact opposite experience. I found the surgeon to be much better than the fill doc (there's no fill nurse at my office). In fact, my surgeon is so good that I don't have him use lidocaine. And he doesn't use fluro either. Just feels for it, stabs, and hits it immediately. Go figure!

One wonders why, if it's a perfectly legal, neutral, and acceptable act. It should be illegal because it is the unjustified taking of another human life. It's not plastic surgery, it's not WLS, it's not a liver transplant or removal, it's not tattooing or ear piercing. People may have opinions about those and they're entitled to them. But none of those procedures is the deliberate killing of a human being. My point is -- is there such a thing as a wrong law? A legal procedure or practice that shouldn't be legal? After all, if I choose to own a slave isn't that MY CHOICE for ME and no one has the right to browbeat me for it if it IS (and it WAS) perfectly legal? After all, Jews should be slaughtered because they're an inferior race; isn't that HITLER'S CHOICE for HIM and no one has the right to browbeat him for it? Legality is not always a measure of rightness. There are some awfully awful laws out there. And this one is the worst of the bunch.

It's amazing that people can be so calloused about human life. "Get rid of the one in front". The point I was trying to make is that the unborn child is an actual life, and while now you understand this child, "the one in front", to be your grandchild with a name and a face, while in utero you only considered the child to be a blob. But it was not a blob, and if your DIL had chosen to eliminate that blob, you would have one fewer grandchild to hold in your arms. The point was to make you think. Instead, you wrote it off as a rhetorical question, something a 4YO would ask. I'm sure your grandchildren wouldn't consider it rhetorical. Especially since it was one of them that you wouldn't have had a problem slating for the trash can.

You are correct. Sometimes doctors have to sacrifice one human being to save another. But that is not what abortion is. Abortion is sacrificing one human being for the convenience of another. Well said, and very true. How profound. A live baby is a complication. That's why they now do DnX, sucking the brains out of the baby's skull before the head is delivered, so there are no "complications" like the dreaded live birth. In the absence of DnX, when they do saline abortions (burning the baby to death) or prostaglandin abortions, there were occassionally live births. In those cases, the baby was usually drowned, covered with a towel and left to die, or sometimes put in a closet and left to die because the nurses couldn't handle hearing the crying until the baby died. What a wonderful and humane procedure abortion is. I didn't think you made the choice. I was just wondering, since you seem that you would have been ok if they had "reduced the pregnancies", which one of your grandchildren you would have preferred they eliminate.

But that, of course, is not the goal of separation surgery. The goal is to save both because they are both human beings. Which one of the three would you have sacrificed to save the other two? Knowing them now, I'm sure you can decide which two are more worthy than the third. Thinking of the one you would have sacrificed and the two you would have saved, suppose the doctors had arbitrarily sacrificed one of the ones you would have saved . . .

Well, I'm glad I'm not alone LOL! I feel better :-) Thanks.

Well, I'm sorry your particular family behaves this way, but they are not the norm. I personally will "agree to a contract to adopt a prospective abortion patient's baby (at birth) no matter what the race or physical deformity." PERIOD. And there are many more like me.

You can't make someone feel guilty about something that's not wrong. I can jump up and down until I'm blue in the face accusing you of committing the horrific act of painting your house yellow. But if there's nothing wrong with painting your house yellow, you won't feel any guilt. The reason people feel guilt over abortion is because there's something to feel guilty about. As hard as they may try, anti-abortion spin control and religious sanctions can't create that feeling if abortion is a neutral act. Because the definition of fetus is unborn baby, why is the word "baby" (or the words "unborn baby") any less an accurate description of what the Latin word "fetus" represents? You could answer the question, "How many children do you have?" with "I have one infant, one toddler, one pre-teen, and one teenager." Or you could say "Four." Both are accurate. The words used to describe them are simply words that indicate their stage of life. But they are still children. You could say "My father had a heart attack" or "My geriatric paternal figure had a myocardial infarction." Both are accurate. We have a language that employs synomyms. I choose to use "unborn baby" or "baby". You choose to use "fetus". Bottom line, it's a little human being.

See the story recently about conjoined twins? One child or two there? If they hadn't been separated, did one have the right to bash the others head in? After all, "my body, my choice!"

Then you don't know the pro-life movement very well. Find me a woman who's considering abortion and I GUARANTEE you I can find her a pro-lifer willing to pay for the medical expenses of delivering a baby. Times as many pregnant women you can find. If she's homeless or has nowhere to go and wants to make a change, I can find her a place to live as well. Just like your saying abortion is only legal in some states through three months, again you just don't know your facts.

I'm so sorry for what you've been through :think. I hope you have been to some post-abortion counseling; there is a lot available. If you need some resources, feel free to PM me. ------------------------ For those of you who have never studied the statistics on the relationship between abortion and child abuse, you will find that the incidence of child abuse increases in families where there has been abortion, precisely because of what FuddyDuddies experienced: once parents realize, through the experience of carrying a baby to full term, that the baby they aborted was no different from the one the chose to allow to be born, they often lash out against the second child out of guilt. Furthermore, if abortion cures child abuse because unwanted children are never born, why is there still child abuse? And why is it on the increase, rather than decreasing? Abortion dehumanizes children and teaches us that at at least some stage of life, people are disposable. Did you know that there are highly regarded scientists and physicians who advocate that a newborn should be assessed at birth to determine whether he is "up to standard" and, if he is not, he should be left to die (begging the question, of course of "whose standard")?

We could agree to call it a not-yet-decided word, yaltizana for example, and it would still be what it is: a human being with a wholly separate identity and biology, growing inside his mother's womb. You are so focused on the word baby and the word fetus -- they're just WORDS! What is the entity we are discussing? IT IS A HUMAN BEING! Don't feed an infant and see how long it survives. Don't provide food and hydration for a paraplegic and see how long they survive. Nourishment doesn't determine one's humanity.

Why would you want there to never have to be another abortion if it isn't a bad thing? Clearly you know something's wrong with it if you want there to never have to be another one. Why is it an emotionally draining issue? And an infant is a potential toddler. A toddler is a potential adolescent. An adolescent is a potential adult. We don't believe that infants are disposable because they're not yet teenagers. A fetus is a baby, a human being, with potential -- not a potential human being. When have you ever said to a pregnant woman, "How's the fetus doing today?" Or when has a pregnant woman said, "My fetus is kicking me!" During an ultrasound, "What a beautiful image of the fetus"? I don't think so. Instead, the OB says, "Listen to the baby's heartbeat" and "The baby is developing well." We say, "That baby's getting big in there!" and "When is your baby due?" Can you in all honesty even think of saying to a pregnant woman, "Is the fetus a boy or a girl?" or "How's the fetus developing"? The only time we call the unborn baby a fetus is when we're discussing it medically or someone is trying to obfuscate the reality of abortion. "Fetus" means unborn baby! And yes, abortion is killing that baby.

Well, most of my stats are in my siggy. I was banded just over 4 months ago. I'm 5'2" and will be 40 in August :faint:and have been battling weight my whole life. I have two darling daughters, ages 6 and 8 (9 in July), both skinny as a rail (thank the Lord). My wonderful husband and family are completely supportive and I am blessed to have the band as a tool to help me lose the excess blubber! My weight last Wednesday was 229.6, so then I was down 25.8 lbs. Thanks for the welcome!

I haven't been paying much attention to my shoes; I've been wearing soled slippers, so they're definitely not too tight. If anything, they're too lose. Would that be an issue? I don't know about circulatory problems, but I'm consistently colder than everybody around me. My body temp is always low, rarely reaching 98.6. I've had thyroid checks up the ying-yang and they're always normal, though. My extremeties do fall asleep in various weird positions -- sometimes sleeping, sitting on the ground, etc. I just never thought it'd happen when I was exercising!!! :paranoid

Hi everyone! I haven't posted in a while as I've been very busy. It's hard to keep up with everything! I'm finally on a downward track again, losing a smidge every day, so I'm happy. My travelling is over for a few months, so I'm hoping to drop about 5-10 lbs a month until September, my next big trip. I've had my third fill, but I'm a bit too tight. I'm going to call the dr on Monday and get an slight unfill.

Better late than never . . . I finally feel, after several fills and the end to vacations and cruising for a few months (which kept me from losing but at least I didn't gain), that I'm on the downward track. Can I join your group?

You guys are so awesome. I want to join you!!!!! Can't wait. Give me a year or so . . .

So as medical techonology improves, "life" begins earlier and earlier? 50 years ago, when medical technology wasn't advanced enough to save a baby at 4.5 to 5 months, babies didn't deserve the right to live? It used to be that a baby wasn't a baby until it had grown for 9 months in its mother's womb, but that slowly became 8 months and then 7 months and then 6 months and then 5 months and now sometimes even less than that? So a baby that was 6 months gestation in 1900 wasn't a baby but in 2000 it is? How arbitrary and discriminatory! Why, then, if a baby can survive at 5 months, is abortion legal through 9? Why are we arguing about the legality of DnX, also known as partial birth abortion, whereby the baby is partially delivered, feet-first, fully alive, and then stabbed at the base of the skull to have their brains sucked out so they abortionist can avoid the "dreaded consequence" of an aborted baby being born alive? Have you ever heard of Gianna Jessen? She was a botched abortion and she survived. Should her mom have had the right to kill her as an infant because that was her intention all along that she not be born? Not quite sure what you mean here. Do you mean that if a woman will physically die if she carries a pregnancy to full term, then she should be allowed to abort? If so, I agree with you. That is the taking of one life to save another. But that's not the abortion debate. The argument is whether it's OK to abort for personal convenience. Interesting. "As a man, I will leave it up to women. But MY WIFE will never have one!" Hmmm. If it's not such a bad thing, if it's just a blob of tissue, just a fetus, not a baby, why would you CARE if your wife had one? Why would you hope none of your grandchildren would have one? If it's a neutral act, why are so many people who are in support of it saying they'd never do it and think it should be limited?

Sorry, but I don't believe that. I believe that women who choose abortion suffer their own private hell for the rest of their lives. They do so quietly, in the privacy of their own minds, because it's something that never leaves you. Spend some time with post-abortive women and you'll see. They're either angry and defensive or completely broken. I don't know that I like the term "tougher penalties", but I'm right there with you in the theory. It's hypocritical that pregnant, unmarried women are pointed at while the men are often considered as just having "sown their wild oats". Furthermore, what a dichotomy that if a woman wants an abortion the father of the baby has no say in it, but if the father wants an abortion and the woman chooses to have the baby, he has no say in it either (i.e. is forced to pay child support). Again, I agree with you. The distinction is that the baby is NOT their own body!!! That's where I draw the line. I am very much a libertarian in many issues. But when you're talking about another separate, distinct human being, I don't believe it's OK to kill them for one's convenience.

I hesitate to get into this because I don't believe abortion is a religious matter, but since you claim to be a Christian, when Jesus was a "fetus" in Mary's womb, you're saying it would have been perfectly fine for Mary to abort Him? That Jesus only became Christ when he took his first breath of air? That prior to that he was just a blob of tissue? Or perhaps that since God knew the embryo that would grow into the adult Jesus Christ was going to actually become a "baby" (by being born), that Jesus alone was fully Jesus both in the womb and out? Or perhaps only the babies that are predestined to be born have souls, and those that are predestined to be aborted don't? This is quite a slippery slope, determining whether or not abortion is acceptable by assigning your own personal belief as to whether and when the baby has a soul. My argument about abortion is strictly factual, based on biology. The claim that a woman should be able to do whatever she wants with her own body is ridiculous. Firstly, the baby is NOT her body. If a woman is pregnant with a male child and the baby IS her body, she not only has 4 arms, 4 legs, and two heads, but she also has male genitalia. The baby is a wholly separate organism, with its own circulatory system, heart, brain, etc. Secondly, a woman can NOT do whatever she wants with her own body. If a woman walks into a hospital and says, "This is my body. Please remove my arm," not only will they not do it, but if she persists they will likely commit her to a mental institution. People don't just randomly remove healthy parts of "their" body. As to social ills ("nobody takes care of these unwanted children when they're born", "these unwanted children become criminals", "these unwanted children are often abused", etc.), firstly there is absolutely no correlation between unwanted pregnancies and unwanted children. Pregnancy is the most emotional time of a woman's life, and the time when she is most emotionally vulnerable. Nine months of having a baby growing in a womb very often changes. Statisticly, there is absolutely no link between unwanted pregnancies and abuse. It's just a fact. Secondly, abortion is the ultimate form of child abuse. It is the often brutal dismemberment of a baby for the purpose of convenience. Again, we don't solve social problems by killing people. If we did, we might as well just gather together and mass-murder all homeless and hungry people. That would solve the problem of homelessness and hunger, wouldn't it? Because that's what you're advocating. Kill the babies before they're born because if you don't, they might be abused. They might be born into a non-nuclear family and turn into criminals. They might be hungry. Better to allow them to be killed then let them live and possibly have to suffer that. Perhaps we should just wait and see if they're hungry or abused or end up in prison and kill them then?

You just don't know your facts. Roe v Wade and it's partner decision Doe v Bolton guaranteed abortion be legal through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason. Most people think it's only legal through three months because the Roe decision deliniates three trimesters and sets guidelines for each. But the Doe decision states that abortion must be legal for all nine months of pregnancy if the mother's health, including her emotional health, as determined by one doctor (including the abortionist) is endangered. In other words, if I'm 8 1/2 months pregnant and I want an abortion, all I have to do is tell the abortionist I can't emotionally handle having a baby and it's legal to do an abortion. While it is not esasy to find an abortionist to do an abortion at 8 1/2 months, they're out there. Furthermore, why can everyone accept abortion at 3 months but not at 7? Does it tickle your conscience because at 7 months the "fetus" LOOKS more like a "baby"?