gadgetlady

Unthinkable. Stories like that just haunt me. I also can't imagine the life-long grief that the poor mother is facing. Don't get me wrong -- she's 100% at fault here -- but the pain she is in (and will feel forever) has got to be intense.

I love learning, too. I've recently been thinking after my kids go off to college, I might go back to graduate school. Most people say this one wrong, but it still drives me nuts. It's LESS if you're referring to a quantity or unit of one, and FEWER if you're referring to a quantity greater than one. So something will have FEWER calories but LESS fat. It will take FEWER than 7 days but LESS than a week. The other one that everyone gets wrong and is EASY to figure out is the I/me thing. Just take out the other person you're referring to. He and (I/me) went to the park. I went to the park. Therefore he and I went to the park. The clerk gave the change to him and (I/me). The clerk gave the change to me. Therefore, the clerk gave the change to him and me.

Another one that makes me nuts is less vs. fewer. "I will consume fewer calories than I did yesterday." "I have less energy than I did yesterday" or - "It took me fewer than 60 minutes; it took me less than an hour."

Well, I was banded on Monday 2/6 and I've had my fair share of incision discomfort, terrible gas, diarahhea, bloating, and restriction from swelling (still having trouble getting liquids down) -- and NOW I'm getting shoulder pain???? When does the yucky stuff end?

I don't have any words of wisdom for you but I just wanted to let you know that I hurt just reading your words; you will be in my prayers. Marriage, and especially sexuality in marriage, are supposed to be "safe havens" where you can be free to express anything. It's so hard to put yourself out there when you've experienced rejection in this area. All I can say is if at all possible you should try to get into counseling with him. It is desperately needed.

I don't know if you're indicating that what I stated above about his supporting infanticide is an "untrue or misguided attack" or if you're directing your statement towards everyone who's had something to say. In regard to this specific matter, however, everything is 100% factual. Obama spoke out in the Illinois senate against providing medical care to babies who are born alive after a failed abortion procedure. This is a position even more radical than any member of the US Senate, including those who are so in favor of abortion that they support taxpayer-funded abortion-on-demand through 9 months of pregnancy. 100% of the US Senate disagrees with Obama on this issue. It's quite an indefensible position.

I have a hard time characterizing anyone who supports infanticide as having an "awesome value system." While an Illinois state senator (2001 to 2003), Obama addressed (by his vote, speech, and actions) the issue of whether children who were born alive during induced abortions had the right to medical care (the "Induced Infant Liability Act"). In 2001, he voted against medical care in committee, and he voted "present" during the actual vote. In 2002, he voted against medical care in committee and in the actual vote. In 2003 he was the chair of the committee and kept the bill from going to a vote. He was the only senator in Illinois who spoke out on the floor of the senate against the bill -- remember, this is a bill which says if a baby is born alive during an induced abortion, he or she is entitled to medical care. In other words, to oppose it means the person supports directly killing or simply doing nothing and allowing a helpless infant who is already born -- separated from his or her mother's body, and who might be saved through medical care -- to die. There was a similar federal bill which Barbara Boxer, Ted Kennedy, and 98 other senators in the US Senate voted for, unanimously. Even NARAL did not oppose it! If for no other reason than this (and there are a lot of other reasons), Obama's "value system" is seriously flawed.

OK, I am SOOOO confused. I have trouble getting yogurt and grits down (and other cereals -- cream of wheat, malt-o-meal, etc.), but I can get filet mignon down without a problem at all -- even if I forget to chew a lot. Can anyone explain this to me?

Does anyone else take acid reflux pills on a daily basis? I find that if I don't take them at least once towards the evening or right before bed, I wake up with acid reflux. Of course I HAVE to take them if I've PB'd or slimed that day (then I need them right away), but even if everything's been fine on a particular day, I still need them at night. Anyone else in this situation?

. . . on this article that was just emailed to me: Today in Investor's Business Daily stock analysis and business news I don't know much about the Canadian health care system, other than it's government-run and the wait time for care can be very long, but I'd love to hear from the people who are "living it" -- and also, did the system cover your lap band?

Thanks, tink. I wish there were a way to change the situation with adoption in this country. I have a dear friend who has been trying to adopt for years with no success. I also have another friend who has been taking in foster babies for a few years and the situations with the biological parents are just heart-wrenching. I wish you the best with your desire to adopt.

I disagree. Many have said that or almost exactly that on this thread. I'm not trying to get into a pissing match either. I'm sorry you misunderstood my post. All I'm saying is I'm trying to approach this with a logical thought process, not emotion. He is not alone. And yet I ask, on what basis does a man derive his rights? What do you want him to have rights to, specifically? He can't have the right to decide what a woman does with her own body, so then you must be saying that there is something other than her body there. That's what I'm getting at. Whether the fetus is a human being is the crux of the matter. If he/she/it is a human being, then "personal beliefs" about the matter have no consequence. One person shouldn't get to decide for another person when his or her life begins or whether his or her life is worthy of continuing. What if my "personal beliefs" were that a human being's life didn't begin until age 5 and therefore I could kill my toddler if she annoyed me. Would you then stand on the "personal beliefs" defense and defend my right to kill my toddler because I don't agree with you as to when human life begins, or would you say there are certain things that define human life and since my toddler meets those requirements I have no right to take her life? Do you see what I'm getting at here? We don't make laws based on nebulous beliefs or personal preference, especially laws surrounding the essential rights we hold dear. The laws should be based on clear, consistent, logical thought -- and right now they're not.

Let me ask both of you a question. Try to think of this purely logically, with no emotion or attachment to catch-phrases like "freedom of choice", etc. (I'm not saying this isn't an emotional issue, I'm just saying try to divorce yourself from rhetoric so you can think through it logically). If the thing growing in the womb is not a baby but part of the woman's (mother's) body ("my body, my choice"), why should the man who impregnated her (the father) have any rights whatsoever? If it is truly her body to do with what she wishes, no man, regardless of whether he has had sex with her, can tell her what to do with her body. Alternately, if, as you propose, the man who impregnated her (the father) has rights, to what exactly do his rights pertain? His rights don't pertain to the woman (mother) because no adult has a right to another adult's body. His rights must therefore be connected to something else. They can't be connected to a human being who might later be created (if the fetus isn't a human being yet) because if that were the case, he would have had the equivalent rights prior to the sex act. Therefore, his rights must be connected to something other than the woman (mother); they must be rights to the fetus (child) -- not the right of ownership, but parental rights. If the thing growing in the womb is not a child, he has and should have zero rights because there's nothing there to which to attach rights. So if you then believe that the thing growing in the womb is a child and the father has certain rights regarding that child, what are the individual rights of the child himself (or herself)? Why is it then ever acceptable for another human being, the mother, to remove the most basic right of all from that child by taking the child's life without the child's consent?

We, as a society, impose our morality on other people every day. We say it is wrong and punishable to break into someone's house and steal their stuff. What if the robber's morality say there's nothing wrong with that? I know this might sound like a ridiculous example, but think it through. Laws are made when one individual's rights impede on another individual's rights. The question is not whether we have the right to impose morality on others (which we do all the time), but whether this particular act is objectionable because it interferes with the baby's right to life. It's interesting to me that you call the mother a mother, the father a father, and the child a child. Why do you believe there are circumstances where it is acceptable for a mother to kill her child? Do we own our children and are we allowed to treat them as property and dispose of them as we wish? Interestingly, the other day I read the California Statutes about murder -- remember, of course, that in California abortion was legal BEFORE Roe v. Wade, so California is known for its liberal abortion laws. In California, murder is defined this way: "Murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought." Hmmm. So EVEN IN LIBERAL CALIFORNIA, killing a fetus is murder. NOTE the law doesn't say the fetus isn't a human being, but it specifically says killing a fetus is equivalent to killing any other human being. But then there are the exceptions. "This section shall not apply to any person who commits an act which results in the death of a fetus if . . . the act was solicited, aided, abetted, or consented to by the mother of the fetus." I was actually quite surprised when I read this statute, because what it does is implicity defines abortion as murder, but then it specifically grants the right to murder to the mother. If the fetus is not a human being, shouldn't the murder statute exclude that supposed non-human being completely, rather than defining it as a situation in which murder becomes acceptable if it is the parent doing the murdering, soliciting, aiding, abetting, and consenting to another person to assist her in the murder?

Pro-life pregnancy counseling centers, generally staffed and run 100% by volunteers (including the doctors and nurses) and 100% free, dramatically outnumber abortion clinics in the US (remember that the abortion clinics are a huge profit-making enterprise and these pro-life centers are funded by donations and run by volunteers). Any pro-life center will offer to any pregnant woman, free, resources to keep her baby (along with this, these centers provide clothing, baby items, formula, etc.) or arrange for adoption. There are thousands of homes for unwed mothers set up across the country. These organizations just simply don't get the "press" that Planned Parenthood does. Believe me, pro-lifers are NOT doing nothing. They do put their money (and their feet and their lives) where their mouth is.

I personally am against the death penalty. I wasn't always; it was actually the pro-life movement that transformed my beliefs on this issue. I do understand those who are both pro-life and support the death penalty, because the death penalty is imposed on people who have committed heinous crimes, while abortion is imposed on people who are 100% innocent of any crime. I am also against medically-assisted euthanasia. Did you read the recent story about a woman in Oregon whose health insurance wouldn't cover the drugs for her cancer but WOULD cover assisted suicide? Scary stuff, there. I believe everyone should have the right to do whatever they want with their own bodies, so long as it doesn't interfere with another human life. Therefore, I don't have a problem with suicide so long as the person committing the suicide doesn't make another person complicit in their self-murder. I believe that any time one person kills another (whether it be through abortion, assisted suicide, self-defense, or even a car accident) it has a grave effect on their psyche and they are never the same -- and it is never acceptable to drag another person into such a situation. I should clarify there that I don't believe people SHOULD commit suicide and I think it's invariably tragic, but I do believe they have the RIGHT to commit suicide.

This is a theme you've repeated in a lot of your posts, and I want to address it. This objection to abortion is predicated on the belief that the goal of those against abortion is to control a woman's reproductive organs. That's simply not true. Our sole goal is to prevent the death of innocent human beings. If a woman chooses to use birth control, be sterilized, or be abstinent to prevent pregnancy, more power to her. If she chooses to have 10 kids or none, more power to her. The ONLY thing we're trying to prevent is taking the life of another human being once it exists -- not the control of women (just like any other murder law on the books doesn't aim to control the actions a potential murderer, but rather to prevent him from interfering with the right to life of another person).

The normal heart rate for an unborn baby is 120-160 beats per minute. The normal heart rate for a mother is under 100 beats per minute. The baby's heart rate varies depending on a variety of factors, such as whether he or she is sleeping. The baby is often sleeping when the mother is awake, and vice-versa. The hearts do not beat together, they are not "two hearts beating as one", and their heart rates are not even close to being the same. This would be consistent with something like, say, the heart rates of two distinct people. Oh, yeah. Because that's what it is.

You're kidding, right? You think the mother's heart and the baby's heart "beat as one?" They're not even close! The baby's heartbeat (rate of beating) is significantly faster than the mother's. They're not sharing "all the same vital stuff" -- the baby is his own person with his own closed circulatory system. There's no shared heart, no shared brain, no shared blood cells, no shared organs (except for the placenta, which isn't shared but simply manages the exchange of oxygen, nutrients, and waste products), no shared limbs, etc. Yes, they are apart, two or more things (that's why we call them mother and baby).

Yes, separate, really. Not separated, but separate, distinct, unique, a different person with his or her own circulatory system, heart, organs, brain, etc.

So sorry you had to go through this, especially at such a young age

A bit of interesting news happened at the end of last week: the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on a case about South Dakota's informed consent law. By a 7-4 vote, the judges ordered the state to enforce a law that requires doctors to tell women who are seeking an abortion that it "will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being." Perfectly put. That's exactly what abortion does: terminates the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.

It's not vague at all. It explains it perfectly. I just, again, wouldn't have suspected it because I thought the health care was country-run, not province-run. How are charges of "discrimination" handled? "In Province A I can be treated for x, but in Province B I can't"? On the subject of your particular situation, have the doctors been able to assess any degree of success with your treatment? It sounds like you're really "going through it" right now :-( Our family is still praying for you.

FASCINATING! I would think that if the care were "free", the poor would be taking advantage of it! I would never have guessed the above situation to be the case. You crack me up.

I didn't realize the different provinces had different coverage. Very interesting. I've been finishing up a unit study on Canada with my daughter (we homeschool) and it's been just fascinating for me. This is one piece of the puzzle that wasn't addressed in the curriculum so I'm interested to hear more!