gadgetlady

It is a 100% accurate parallel. We say it's OK to kill the unborn baby because he or she is not human or not fully human. We said it was OK to kill the slave because he or she was not fully human. Do you see the similarity? I know it sounds ridiculous in 2009, but back in the 1700s it made perfect sense to slaveowners that a black person wasn't fully human. Just as now it makes perfect sense to those in favor of abortion that the baby isn't fully human. My question is twofold: 1) Why were the slaveowners wrong? What did they miss about the definition of humanity?, and 2) What is fundamentally wrong about one person defining when another person's life begins, is valid, is worthwhile, or is worth saving?

Mindy, let me ask you a question -- it's a total hypothetical but I think the way medicine is advancing it may one day be a possibility. If doctors could take an unborn baby who the mother wanted to abort, remove him or her from the biological mother's womb, and either keep him or her alive through technology or implant him or her into another (willing) woman's womb, would you see this as an acceptable alternative to the "right" to abortion? In other words, would it be acceptable for the state to compel mothers to undertake this scenario instead of allowing them to abort?

Carrie, that's an awesome testimony. I have friends who were emergency foster care parents, not wanting to ever become full-time parents again (they have 3 grown children); they took in a crack baby about 2 years ago and she ended up staying with them since them (instead of only being in their house for a few months like the other babies they've taken in); they've fallen in love with her and are now in the process of adopting her. CPS has discontinued all claims to her by the parents. She had a lot of problems in the beginning but now she is an absolute doll. Unplanned pregnancies don't always translate into unwanted children. Someone always wants them. The social problem we run into is when the children aren't available for adoption at a young age and they end up "in the system" for many years. Those are the kids that end up in foster care for life. The infants are generally snapped up right away.

Put the issue of abortion on the shelf for a moment and look, instead, at slavery. Slave-owners in the US defined black people as less than a whole human being, which then gave them the "right" to sell, trade, whip, beat, and kill the slaves they "owned". Why is this approach illegitimate? Quite simply, because black people were fully human, despite how they were defined by the law and the people who wanted to oppress them. The incorrect defining of them as 3/5 of a human being didn't actually make them 3/5 of a human being. Their human-ness was a scientific fact, and another human being's opinion of their human-ness didn't make that opinion correct. Imagine you are arguing with someone who believes in slavery based on the opinion that blacks are 3/5 of a human being, not fully human. What facts would you use to convince them that a black person is indeed 100% human?

I never said it was Biblical times. We were having a discussion about what God would say about abortion, according to the Bible, so I was asking some questions about how God would have felt about and/or dealt with in utero babies during Biblical times. Don't you think you should know the answer to that question before you say it's ok to abort? Because if we (as a society) get it wrong, we're involved in mass murder. If you don't know if a body's dead, you don't bury it.

I thought we were having a quite civil discussion. Why would Carrie want to "bail"? Do you want to answer some of the questions posed? I'd be interested to hear your answers as well.

He wasn't. He is still widely touted as one by people who have heard it from others, but he actually practiced mysticism and had disdain for Christians.

Second question, speaking as a Christian only: When does a human being have a soul? I realize this is 100% inconsequential for people who aren't Christians, so I am only speaking to those who believe in God and are also in favor of abortion.

OK, forget Jesus in the womb. What about John the Baptist leaping in the womb when he was in the presence of Jesus in the womb. Was John the Baptist a person at that time? Would God have cared if Elizabeth had aborted him? Did God have a plan for his life even though he was not yet born?

I think that number is a bit high according to other studies I've seen, but I'm not surprised AT ALL that it's high in general. The church has historically been horrible in its treatment of single women who are pregnant. I think in a lot of places that has changed or is still changing, but it's just despicable how the church used to treat young women in crisis situations. As I said, I think that tide has turned or is turning (in some parts of the country more so than others) and I, for one, am happy to see it. I had a friend in college who got pregnant our freshman year (1985). She asked me to drive her for her abortion. I think it was a serious cry for help because she knew how pro-life I was. After my entrance into the situation, she carried the baby to term and placed him for adoption, but she did so away from the college. She returned to her parents' home town, but they didn't want the stigma of having her live with them, so she lived with a Catholic Charities' family until she delivered. I remember even then how appalled I was that her family basically "disowned" her and made her live with strangers (fewer than 5 miles from her house) so they didn't have to deal with gossip. My daughters know unequivocally that they will never be judged by me or my husband for being pregnant out of wedlock (they also know they shouldn't put themselves in a situation where that might happen, but that's another story). I make it a practice to support facilities that take in unwed mothers, and I will help any young mother I can with unconditional love and acceptance -- and my girls have seen me do it, not just talk about it. It is never our place to judge, because we've all made mistakes. Christians who judge young mothers in crisis situations need to get the planks out of their eyes.

I don't think this has anything to do with God's view of the unborn. Lots of people die every day. Whether they're young or old, it doesn't mean that God doesn't love them or value their lives. As a Christian (I'm assuming you are but I might be wrong -- you've said you believe in God but haven't said anything about Jesus that I recall), do you think Jesus was Jesus in the womb? How do you reconcile the Scripture that talks about how John the Baptist leaped in Elizabeth's womb when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, entered the room? Was John the Baptist still John the Baptist in utero, or did he only become a person when be was born? And if he was a person because he was past viability (again, I can't pinpoint from prior posts exactly when you think the unborn becomes a person, so correct me if I'm wrong about your beliefs here), what was Jesus at that time? He was certainly pre-viability, so how was He still an entity that John would leap at if he wasn't a person? Was Jesus, or even John for that matter, a unique person in His own right from the moment of conception, or did He only become a person after a certain stage of pregnancy? BTW, I'd love to hear perspectives about this question from any Christians who are in favor of abortion, not just Carrie.

Mindy, I assume you're not referring to me here but I just want you to know that I, for one, do not have that impression of anyone who has had an abortion, and certainly not anyone on this board. I'm sorry :mad2: for what you experience.

So the comment posted 3 hours after my post and the next one in succession, wasn't referring to me? OK, sorry I incorrectly inferred that you ascribe all of those things to me. History would demonstrate it to be true, but whatever you say. Since you're OK with late-term abortions for any reason at all, then not OK with them, then OK with them, and now again not entirely OK with them, I'll accept your claim that you don't believe me to be all of those things you said. :mad2:

I live in California. I'm already "donating" :mad2:

I never said anything about the Bible. As to interpreting science, science is factual and needs no interpretation. Are you against infanticide? If so, how dare you impose your views on someone who thinks it's perfectly acceptable. Do you see the problem here? No, BJean, your BELIEF does not determine when another person's life begins. When a life begins is empirical, not faith-based, and it certainly isn't contingent on when one person believes it begins. I never said anyone was a really bad person. Don't put words in my mouth. I never said anything of the sort. Don't put words in my mouth. Careful -- your condescension is showing. Didn't you just say above that you were going to try not to get personal?

WHY don't you agree with "most" late-term abortions? That's the crux of the matter. What is driving you to disagree? No, not at all. I 100% believe in everyone's rights to make reproductive decisions. I believe in birth control. I believe in permanent sterilization (uncoerced). I believe in abstinence. What I do NOT believe in is killing another human being; that is not a "reproductive decision" any more than killing your spouse is a "marital decision". I believe you have the right to drive your car off a cliff and kill yourself. I don't believe you have the right to do it if there's a passenger in the car. I also don't believe you have the right to put a brick on the gas pedal and drive the passenger off the cliff alone, even if it's your car. Nope. I believe the FACTS trump anyone's BELIEF. The FACT of the matter is that the thing growing in the womb is a little human being. Right now, there is a law that allows you to enforce your beliefs on another human being: the unborn baby. And those beliefs can be lethal to that baby. I am advocating against the oppression of that human being. Control your own body -- go for it -- in any way you wish. Just don't take the body of another person while doing so.

Just posting two newsclips of interest here: The N. Dakota Personhood bill, HB 1572, passed out of the House this Tuesday 51-41. It defines a "person" under N. Dakota law as any member of the human genome, which would extend to unborn children. And here's an interesting interview with the mother of the baby who died after the "botched" abortion - from http://www.lifenews.com/state3857.html (emphasis mine): The mother of a baby who was killed in a tragic and bizarre botched abortion case is now speaking out about her experience and the lawsuit she filed against the abortion practitioner. Sycloria Williams gave an exclusive interview to the Florida Catholic after a medical board revoked the abortion practitioner's license. In July 2006, Williams sought an abortion at the GYN Diagnostic Center abortion facility in Hialeah, outside Miami. Williams, 18 at the time, paid $1,200 for the abortion. She had preparatory work done for the abortion on one day and came back the next to complete the abortion procedure. Instead, she gave birth to Shanice Denise Osbourne, whom abortion facility staff failed to provide medical care for and eventually hid from officials who came to the abortion center to investigate. Earlier this month, the Florida Board of Medicine revoked the license of abortion practitioner Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique after declaring him guilty of medical malpractice. The panel also found him guilty of wrongly delegating a medical responsibility meant for physicians to unlicensed personnel. In the interview, Williams said she was "reluctant at first" to have the abortion "but as time passed it became more and more of an option." After finding out that an abortion at the Miramar Woman Center was more than she could afford, Williams went to Renelique. "He said that it was a two-day procedure, to take my medicines, and come back the next day. He just said it like one, two, three," she told the Florida Catholic. Williams said Renelique inserted laminaria and gave her a prescription for Cytotec, a brand of the drug misoprostol that is an ulcer medication and not supposed to be used in association with an abortion. Williams eventually received a call from the daughter of abortion business owner Belkis Gonzalez and made her way to the A Gyn center to complete the abortion. On the way there, she and her then-boyfriend Shane decided not to complete the abortion. She received another dosage of Cytotec and waited in her car for the drug to work. Williams told the newspaper how she recalls the labor intensifying and being unable to comply with requests from the abortion center staff not to deliver her baby, who was born on the couch in the abortion facility. "When I saw that happen, I jumped off the chair and turned away, facing the wall," Williams said. "She wasn't moving much. Twitching, gasping for air. She wasn't crying though, just hissing. Hissing sounds only," Williams said of Shanice. "I thought it would be a blob thing, but bigger, not a baby," she said. "She looked like a Water Baby. Like those dolls you fill up with water." "They never said anything to me that would make me think it was a baby. They never said anything like ‘baby,’ ‘fetus.’ Nothing. They only said things like ‘termination’ and ‘pregnancy’ and ‘termination of pregnancy,'" she said. Williams says Gonzalez, who has no medical training, then came in and took the baby and put her in a biohazard bag. She told the newspaper that the staff just gave her a pain reliever and told her to calm down and wait for the abortion practitioner to arrive. Renelique arrived 60 minutes later and no one called 911 or a local medical center for help. The abortion practitioner gave Williams a shot to put her to sleep. Detectives went to the abortion center after an anonymous tip and later executed a search warrant but didn't find the baby's body until six days later. Now, Williams has changed her mind about abortion and would keep her baby if she had it to do all over again. "No one should lose their life if you get pregnant," she said. "If I got pregnant again I would have the baby." "I would tell them not to do it. I'll say whatever to make them have second thoughts so they don't do it... There is help out there," she told the Catholic newspaper about what she would tell a woman who was pregnant. Shanice eventually received a proper burial.

Are you saying the baby only gets hurt? I'm trying to challenge people to think about why they believe what they believe. I'm not trying to be rude, and I don't think I have been. But I have asked some difficult questions and pointed out some of the consistency problems. I certainly don't think I've not been nice. I haven't called you names (like others have called me) or gotten angry or railed on you for your position; all I've done is asked some tough questions in an effort to have you view this issue from a different perspective. Many years ago, someone challenged the logic of my reasoning on the death penalty. Their perspective prompted me to look at my views and, in the end, I changed what had been a long-held belief for me. People can change their perspectives about things, don't you think? The problem is that when you're playing around with the issue of when a human being lives and when he dies, you have to be really, really sure you're right because if you're not, you've just killed someone (or advocated for their killing). There is a difference between beliefs and absolute truths, unless you are arguing in favor of complete moral relativism (which I don't think you are). We would never hesitate to call child abuse wrong; if someone said it was their "belief" that child abuse was acceptable, you would, without hesitation I believe, call them wrong. If someone said slavery should be legal because it's one person's belief, you would be 100% justified in calling them wrong. And there's a reason they're wrong: they involve the infringement of the subjected person's rights. Similarly, when we allow one person (the mother) to define when another person's (the baby's) life has value or deserves to be protected, we are on very shaky ground. Because that's really what oppression is: one person's taking away another person's value or worth and subjecting him to any number of horrific things simply because he has the power to do so. Because in the issue of abortion we are dealing with life and death matters, whether we get it right is critical. And there is a right and wrong in this matter. It's not subjective. Everyone's life begins somewhere, and everyone's life begins at the same time as everyone else's. Your life didn't begin at 6 months and mine at conception and someone else's at birth. Any random person's arbitrary definition of when life begins is inconsequential to when it really begins, and that's what's critical to determine in this issue. It's not about beliefs. It's about facts.

So abortion kills someone? Then why is it EVER acceptable? So abortion kills someone, but no one has a right to tell anyone that they can't undertake this killing procedure? Do you see the problem here? Life is an empirical fact, not a belief. Religion is a belief. The existence of life is not a belief.

That's what I thought you believed, until you said, on 2/9: I found that prior statement curious, because I was pretty sure you believed in abortion on demand through all 9 months of pregnancy with no limitations whatsoever. That being said, since you've reversed your prior statement, I'm not at all surprised that you believe abortion should be legal for any reason or no reason up until the point of full gestation. Not surprised at all.

Here's the point I was trying to make. Yo don't believe that plastic surgery should be limited, and, IMO, rightly so. What a person wants to do with their own body should be their discretion. However, you do want abortion to be limited. The limitations vary -- 8-12 weeks, 3-4 months, etc. -- but you and a lot of other people definitely want limitations. Here's my question: WHY should abortion be limited? You say a mother should be able to make up her mind 3-4 months into the pregnancy about whether or not she wants to abort, but why should she HAVE to make up her mind by this arbitrary timeline? What criteria or criterion are you using to determine this artificial deadline after which point you would curtail her decision to have an elective surgery.

I get it. Now, you've said that you don't think women should get abortions after 8-12 weeks, and certainly not in the third trimester. I'm wondering what your reasoning is for this -- other than "she should know what she wants to do by then". Because "she should know what she wants to do by then" isn't really a good reason for limiting what presumably is someone's right to do -- just like limiting how many plastic surgeries someone has isn't our right to do, even if we think they're a little loony for doing them over and over and over again.

OK, you're confusing me. Do you think there should be a legal limit to a woman's getting as many cosmetic surgery procedures as she wants? Are you saying that there shouldn't be a legal limit but that you think people who go overboard are a bit crazy (in other words, it should remain legal even though people abuse it) -- so you're not wanting a legal limit but you'd prefer it if people would self-limit?

Not specifically her. Let me rephrase the question: should a woman who has the means to pay for plastic surgery and the desire to do so be able to get any plastic surgery she wants to get? Or should her plastic surgery options be limited in any way?

How do you all feel about limiting a woman's ability to get plastic surgery?