gadgetlady

BJean, the reason I called you passive-aggressive is because you wait a few posts after something I say and then you make a snide comment that you attempt to pass off as unrealted -- about the very same thing I just addressed. For example, I made a comment about how asking someone if they're a Christian in America is like asking them if they're American. You know as well as I do that people identify themselves as Christian who are not Christ-followers and don't even try to be. There are some pretty standard core beliefs that define Christianity and a lot of people who call themselves Christians don't believe these things. Look, I can call myself Hispanic but if I have no Hispanic blood in my ancestry, you would call "foul". So anyway, I make a comment about people who call themselves Christians and aren't, and you come back a few posts later with Now you can try to pretend that what you said wasn't directed at what I said, but I don't think you're pulling the wool over anyone's eyes. If you have a problem with something I'm saying, then say it! Don't pretend like you're making an unrelated comment or had an inspiration about something that wasn't addressed in the past. I'm not saying we should attack each other, but if you have a problem with my saying that not all people who classify themselves as Christians are really Christians, discuss the issue! Don't come back a few posts later with something you try to make sound like an unrelated post in which you really attack ME -- "I find that classification to be very self-serving and narrow minded and I figure they must be very angry people . . ." -- in other words calling me self-serving, narrow minded, and angry. In doing so, you are attempting to veil your personal attack with generalizations. Ergo, I called you on it. Really? This is sensible and reasonable -- and trying to keep the peace?:

BJean, you are one of the most passive-aggressive people I know.

Wow! That's quite a statement. Sex education is a part of our homeschooling and our kids are very well educated at age-appropriate levels. To paint homeschoolers and "religious people" as people who avoid talking about sex to their kids is wholly inappropriate. Doesn't passing out condoms and teaching kids about sex techniques at very early ages condone and promote sex before marriage? If not, what does it promote? What would handing out bongs promote?

Why must one have serial abortions to have used abortion as birth control? If the use of abortion prevents live birth, which has precisely the same effect as birth control, then it is a form of birth control -- most especially when no other form was used. At the times in my life when I haven't wanted to be pregnant (like now), I'm awfully darn serious about birth control because abortion is not an option. There are a lot of women who aren't terribly serious about it because abortion IS an option.

I think the stigma of being pregnant and unmarried is pretty much gone in today's society. Be that as it may, I agree with you -- we are entirely too judgmental and drive some mothers who might not otherwise abort directly to the clinic because of what others might say. It's very sad. It's equally sad that we often punish the mothers with our judgment, but not the fathers. I have raised my daughters to know that no matter what their circumstance they can always come to me for support. They not only hear the words from me, but also see it backed up in my actions of supporting unwed pregnant mothers unconditionally.

What I am saying is that laws may not stop everyone from unlawful behavior, but they do curtail some -- and I would say most -- people from that behavior. Yes, people do speed on the way to Vegas. But they would go faster if there were no speed limit law. You are absolutely right. And the statistics take us away from the issue at hand, which is not who is having abortions or why they are having them, but whether abortion is the taking of a human life. If it is, then it doesn't really matter who is having them or why.

Asking people what religion they are in this country is like asking them if they're Americans. When you dig deeper into the questions, you generally find that most people who define themselves as Christians don't hold to the traditional tenants of the Christian faith. A large number are also not church-goers. So they're really not getting "preached at" about sex and abstinence.

The question was, "is abortion being used as birth control?" The answer, for the 46% of women who didn't use any form of birth control and opted to abort, is "yes". They used abortion to produce the same effect that birth control would have (or should have -- I'm not saying birth control is 100% effective). Furthermore, of those who DID use birth control, a significant number said they didn't use it consistently.

It seems like you're saying that laws don't curtail illegal behavior -- that it doesn't matter if, say theft, is legal or not, because thieves will steal regardless of the law and therefore the incidence of theft will be the same despite laws prohibiting it. So why do we have laws at all? I know for me personally, there are laws that I don't agree with that have curtailed what I would have done had there not been any laws in place: e.g. speed limit laws. If there were no speed limit laws, I certainly wouldn't drive at 70mph from LA to Vegas. I'd be going 100. And furthermore, if the same number of women had abortions regardless of whether it was legal or not, then we wouldn't have seen a dramatic increase in abortion from 1973 on. The numbers would have remained relatively static.

Well, the research arm of Planned Parenthood says different. From http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html: • Forty-six percent of women who have abortions had not used a contraceptive method during the month they became pregnant. Of these women, 33% had perceived themselves to be at low risk for pregnancy, 32% had had concerns about contraceptive methods, 26% had had unexpected sex and 1% had been forced to have sex. I would consider 46% a "large number".

You missed the main point entirely. It wasn't about empathy. The headline on the story contained the words "Fetuses Survive". My point was directed towards those who claim the fetus isn't alive until (insert some arbitrary point here) -- the headline blared that the thing growing in the womb "SURVIVED". How does something that isn't alive accomplish SURVIVAL? You can't survive non-life. And the second point, about the schizophrenia of our society, was in the fact that we (as a society) CARE about these twin unborn babies (who are still, btw, alive), but we (as a society) really DON'T care about the unborn babies of the same gestational age who are aborted at the clinic down the street from the bank where these two were almost killed.

Anyone see the headline today about the shooting of a bank teller who was 5 months pregnant with twins? Pregnant bank teller survives shooting - Crime & courts - MSNBC.com Headline reads: "Pregnant bank teller, fetuses survive shooting". How could something that wasn't alive in the first place, survive? Of COURSE the unborn are alive! What a schizophrenic society we live in. She could just as easily have walked into an abortion clinic and legally taken the lives of those babies herself and no one would have cared if they'd survived (they likely wouldn't have).

Roe and Doe made abortion legal through all 9 months of pregnancy. It didn't cut it off at 26 weeks. You believe the thing growing in the womb is a complication? A complication of what?

BTW, from out here in "theoryland", a report from Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, 1981 reads: "Physicians, biologists and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being--a being is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings."

So if you define life as when one individual believes it begins, and that one individual has a right to impose his views on another individual, how can you decry infanticide, slavery, and a whole host of other human rights violations? Because all the person in power has to claim is that he "believed" the other person wasn't a human life. Damage to the mother is an issue, yes. But the "little other" thing is the taking of the "little other" life.

Actually, that's not true. I have heard other definitions: viability, and birth -- both of which are arbitrary. Viability changes with medical technology, and birth can happen at a difference of several months in development. When a pregnant mother is killed and the killer is tried for 2 murders, who's the second one? When a baby is operated on in utero, who is the entity that has a problem the doctors trying to correct?

Nor I, you. Because it seems to me that you arbitrarily define life as life when someone believes it's life. I haven't heard any other definition from anyone who's pro-abortion on this thread. You do know when I'm saying this, that it's not facetious? You are aware of the learned people who actually believe this? If not, let me know and I'll give you some references.

Knowing the definition of life isn't. To claim that a growing baby isn't a life is. Look, I get it. Pro-abortion people believe that the unborn thing is too tiny to care about. I understand that. They believe the mother's life is more valuable and therefore the unborn thing's life is not worthy of protection. I get that. They believe the mother's life should trump the unborn thing's life. I get that. But to try to wriggle around and say something is human and it's life but it's not human life is just disingenuous -- or blind. I'm not quite sure who you're arguing for here. "The unborn thing doesn't look like the rest of us; he must not be human! Let's ignore scientific evidence!" The evidence is IN. It's human. It's life. It's human life. After all, what makes the Nobel Peace Prize winners who say a baby isn't alive until a month after birth wrong? Because the way you're defining it, life doesn't begin until a person "believes" it begins.

Quite frankly, I think this is a ridiculous argument -- and verbal semantics. Life doesn't happen when we "believe" it happens, and therefore at different times for different people. Life IS. If you "believe" it isn't life and act on that belief by destroying another life, you actually are imposing your beliefs on other people -- in an horrific way. There are generally accepted biologic standards about the definition of life. I'm going to cut and paste a bit here from The Definition of Life, but there are many other sources to be found: According to Hickman, Roberts, and Larson (1997), any living organism will meet the following seven basic properties of life: 1) Chemical uniqueness. Living systems demonstrate a unique and complex molecular organization. 2) Complexity and hierarchical organization. Living systems demonstrate a unique and complex hierarchical organization. 3) Reproduction. Living systems can reproduce themselves. 4) Possession of a genetic program. A genetic program provides fidelity of inheritance. 5) Metabolism. Living organisms maintain themselves by obtaining nutrients from their environments. 6) Development. All organisms pass through a characteristic life cycle. 7) Environmental reaction. All animals interact with their environment. The unborn baby meets all of these standards. The argument is about whether this particular human life is deserving of protection, not about whether it's human, whether it's life, or whether it's human life.

Why does what we name them matter? Fetus, baby, unborn baby, newborn baby, infant, toddler, adolescent, etc. -- they're all just NAMES for the different stages of life! The problem comes when we believe that by naming them "fetus", for example, that we can then take away their rights because we define them as less than human -- which they are not. But fewer of them will choose to abort if it is illegal or more difficult to do so -- and furthermore, fewer of them will choose to abort if they are educated as to what is growing within them. We don't decriminalize theft just because people are going to choose to do it anyway. You are correct. There are no extenuating circumstances that would ever convince me it is acceptable to kill an innocent human being because that human being is an inconvenience to another. And you are also incorrect; making abortion illegal is not my only concern. I also believe in providing many different types of support for women who are experiencing an unplanned pregnancy.

And toddlers aren't toddlers until they're toddlers. And adults aren't adults until they're adults. It is a continuum. Life isn't a title bestowed at birth (which for some babies might be 9 months after conception and for others might be 6 -- how arbitrary is that?). Life just plain IS. If you choose to define it as non-life, that doesn't make it so. It just makes your definition wrong. As are you.

There are lots of differences to all stages of life. It doesn't mean they're not life; it just means they're different stages. :Dancing_biggrin::glare: No one's forcing or trying to force anyone to create babies. The babies are already created, or there'd be no reason for abortion!

It's pretty funny how you're so black and white in your portrayal of me. Am I black and white on this issue? Absolutely, yes. There is no gray in the question of whether it's acceptable to wantonly kill innocent people at any stage of life, from fetal to elderly. Does that mean I don't understand the plight of mothers who are pregnant and don't want to be? Of course not! You don't know me; you don't know if I've ever been pregnant without wanting to be, if I've ever had a pregnancy scare and considered abortion, or even if I've had an abortion! You don't know the friends I have who have had abortions or carried their babies to term. You can continue to portray me as narrow-minded, but it's a bit narrow-minded of you to do so because you just plain don't know me. Skin is not a life. It is a body part. A fetus is a human being at a particular stage of development in life, just as is an infant, a toddler, an adolescent, a teenager, and so forth. It's a very early stage, but it's all in the progression from conception to death.

Oh, I agree 100%. Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with what she did, I don't think it makes for "art" in any sense of the word, and I don't believe she was necessarily pregnant any of the times she took the herbs. But that's not what I'm questioning. What I'm questioning is the simultaneous illogic and audacity of people who support "choice" and believe that a woman should be allowed to have an abortion anywhere, anyhow, at any time during pregnancy, for any reason -- and yet decry what this woman did. Even if it's a hoax, or even if she was never pregnant -- what the heck is the problem with it, if it's solely her body to do with what she pleases?

Bravo, Jennie! I meant to respond to this earlier but I haven't had the time. I don't know what kind of mental gymnastics one has to go through to arrive at the conclusion that something that is human and something that is life isn't . . . human life.