gadgetlady

So why are you different?

Without life, there is no personal liberty. Remember, it is "LIFE, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" -- not the other way around. Because there is no exact gestation age that is consistent for all babies, there would be no way to do this. My kids were both 2 weeks late. I met a woman a few weeks ago with a daughter who was 3 months early. Life doesn't suddenly begin when a baby breathes. There was clearly a baby there before that first breath. Women don't say they're carrying a blob of tissue, they're carrying a child. They say they're having a boy or a girl. The baby kicks and has the hiccups in utero. The ultrasound pictures sometimes show a baby sucking his thumb, not a blob inserting part of his blob-ness into a cavern in another part of his blob-ness.

Generally, yes. These are late-term abortions performed on viable babies.

Why don't we err on the side of life? After all, if we don't know if someone is dead or not, we don't bury them. Furthermore, it is in the interest of the personal liberty of the unborn baby to survive the first 9 months of life.

Then you're in favor of the partial birth abortion ban? Because in that procedure, the baby is delivered, head-first, before being stabbed at the base of the skull and having his or her brains removed. So in that case, the baby could take a breath and is therefore alive?

Just as an infant is what it takes to some day become a toddler, and a toddler is what it takes to some day become a pre-teen, and so on. They are all stages of life. Not one of those stages is non-life. Hello, the word "abortionist" was used to describe the person performing the abortion! I have never, ever called someone an abortionist unless they perform abortions, as per the definition: American Heritage Dictionary (ə-bôr'shə-nĭst) n. One who performs abortions. Life is not a personal moral issue. The reality is, either the unborn is a baby or it isn't. One of us is right and one of us is wrong. There is no neutral ground. If I'm pregnant and the woman next to me is pregnant, we are both either carrying a child within us or we're not. If she believes it isn't a child and I believe it is, one of us is wrong. Our belief about the humanity of the thing inside of us doesn't bestow that humanity. It is independent of our opinion.

So until the unborn takes a breath of air, it is not an individual?

What is outrageously offensive about it? It's a medical procedure! Why do you care about the description of the medical procedure? Why does the word "abortionist" offend you? Why is compassion needed if what's being removed isn't a baby?

It's not an emotional attack at all. Sorry if it hit home for you. What about foster-care infants, then, who can't make their wishes know -- even though they're "living, breathing individuals with a self-sustaining heartbeat" -- how about if we kill them? After all, what kind of life do they have to look forward to?

In the US, we used to have a law that said blacks were 3/5 of a human being. The law was, obviously, wrong -- but to the people of the time, they simply didn't believe blacks had the same worth as a "full" human being. And laws were made based on that decision. The point is it doesn't matter what people BELIEVE. What matters are the facts. If you listen to abortionists talk about how they know when they've completed an abortion, they talk about opening the bag (containing what was taken out of the womb) and counting -- two arms, two legs, a head, a torso -- yup, we got it all. What the HECK is it if it's not a human being? We obfuscate the issue by using words like "fetus" and "product of conception" and "blob of tissue", but the reality is when women abort, they are stopping a beating heart. The baby is a wholly separate entity from the mother, with its own circulatory system, brain waves, blood type, heartbeat, organs, etc.

The parents were just unsuccessful at convincing the court. There are other cases that ended differently.

All life is precious. How would you feel if I said, "Well, I think we should help the foster-care kids, the homeless, and the people in danger of being bombed, but let's kill all of the drug-addicts because they're worthless"?

And as I said in the other post, if someone other than your husband can present compelling evidence that you didn't want to be taken off life support, your husband does NOT have the right to kill you. Since no one has asked the babies, I believe others need to speak up for them.

I didn't bring up PAS; someone else did, citing an article that claimed it didn't exist. I was simply presenting evidence that it does. I have said before -- perhaps you didn't read it -- that whether or not women suffer after abortion is not a reason to outlaw the procedure. The basis for outlawing the procedure is quite simply that it takes the life of a human being. Period. It has nothing to do with religion or with beliefs about contraception or with how much women suffer after abortion (or don't) or overpopulation (or lack thereof) or anything else. It is very simple. Human beings don't have the right to kill other human beings for the sake of convenience.

Not if someone else can articulate clearly in a court of law that your desire would have been to live. Which is precisely why other people have to be their voice. The true measure of a society is how compassionate they are to the weak and needy among them. Who is more weak and needy than those who have no voice?

No, because of the pain that is intended and inflicted, they do not push farther. They know and understand the pain. I'm asking what the goal of spanking without pain is? Is it that a spank WITH pain might be in the future?

Not if you've made written provisions that you don't want to be removed from life support. We've just never given the unborn the option to have a voice in the matter.

What is the message, then? That you're bigger and stronger and if they get any more out of line you could beat them up? I've been musing over this for a while, over the outrage that I suggested that discipline is meant to inflict pain. All discipline, whether it's removing dessert or tv privileges or requiring the child to clean the garage or spanking the child, is meant for discomfort and pain -- otherwise it wouldn't be effective. We could not punish our children by telling them if they don't change their behavior we'll remove the brussel sprouts from their plate (unless, of course, they love brussel sprouts). Punishment is meant, through the discomfort of the punishment, to encourage the child to not do whatever he is doing, now or in the future. If someone is spanking their children simply to demonstrate that he "means business" or "is serious", then in essence the spanking is simply the "last resort" in a line of failed alternate discipline methods. I wonder what comes next if the "light tap" on the bottom, which is of course never meant to inflict pain, fails? Does the infliction of a painful spanking come next? Is it then OK? What does a child learn when a parent goes through a litany of punishments to finally arrive at a spanking? I should clarify again that spankings are not a regular occurrence in our family. Our 9yo gets spanked once or maybe twice A YEAR. Our 6yo perhaps once or twice a month, and that's dwindling. However, they both know that there are certain behaviors that will earn a spanking, and they therefore know to avoid those behaviors.

Ahhh, yes, but all of these groups have one right in common. The have the right to live, to not be killed at the whim of another.

I believe all human beings, regardless of age, place of residence, development, intelligence, or cognition have the same rights, and no one person's rights, most especially the right to not be killed, trump another's.

Years ago I was flipping through tv channels mid-day and happened upon Oprah interviewing a feminist icon; I think it was Helen Gurley Brown but I'm not 100% sure. She had just finished writing a book, a memoir about her life. Oprah was asking her about the last chapter of the book, which didn't really fit in with the rest. It was a letter to an imaginary daughter, or to the daughter she never had (I can't remember which words she used). I remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, this woman has written a letter to her aborted daughter and published it in a book!" The author went on and on about the chapter and you could see how emotional she was getting. It was so painfully clear that it was a post-abortive issue for her. She was talking about this "imaginary" daughter who was doing things like spinning around and dancing, how she was dressed, etc., how much her Mommy loved her and how she should always cherish that love. She kept going on and on about how much this "imaginary" daughter needed to know her Mommy loved her. It wasn't a "woman power" thing that you would expect from a feminist book, but rather very clearly and distinctly a love letter to her "imaginary" daughter. The chapter, according to the description of the book and discussions about it, was SOOOO out of place it was ridiculous. While this is not necessarily everyone's experience, I am sure that there are a lot of women out there who feel the same way, who regret what they have done but who don't talk about it for fear of opening up the wound again.

Have you ever asked? Would they feel safe telling you, knowing that you don't suffer? Well, you know, I do live in the Deep South. Of course, it's Southern CALIFORNIA, so I don't know how you get much more liberal than that LOL!

I disagree. I think you daughter might feel sorry for spilling soda, but only feel guilt if she tries to hide it from you or if she spilled it because she was doing something that she shouldn't have been.

I don't think anyone can be made to feel guilty for something that isn't wrong. No one can make me feel guilty for getting banded, for having short hair, or for buying a red car -- because there's nothing wrong with any of those things. They can yell and scream that I'm a sinner until they're blue in the face, but I still will feel no guilt. If there is no moral problem with abortion, no one would feel any guilt -- regardless of who tells them they're a sinner. I also think it's sad that people write off a whole category of women who are experiencing real, true suffering just because some groups choose to believe PAS doesn't exist. It's real for a lot of women.

Actually, no. I was just responding to laurend's link to an article claiming that it doesn't exist. (BTW, the American Academy of Family Physicians believes it does) I said I'd never met one in real life. You and green (and I can't remember if there's anyone else on this board) are the first women I've ever "met" who've claimed they didn't suffer (I'm not questioning your claim, BTW). And contrary to what someone said earlier, I don't seek out women who do suffer PAS; often I know them for years without knowing about their abortions.