gadgetlady

So basically it's all up to us to determine when a human being is a human being? That's great, because I wanted to go buy me a slave, and since I don't consider them human there's no problem there.

I guess I misspoke, then. If it's such an arbitrary, ambiguous thing, perhaps I shouldn't have said start at BIRTH and count backwards. After all, Dr. Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton, said we shouldn't consider babies human until one month or so. In his books, Singer has said that children less than one month old have no human consciousness and do not have the same rights as others. "Killing a defective infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person," he wrote in one book. "Sometimes it is not wrong at all."

Count back from birth, then, and tell me when it DOES begin. Not based on opinion or touchy-feely stuff, but on scientific facts, please.

So you're in favor of banning abortions after about 21 or 22 weeks (sooner as medical technology develops)? That's awesome!

Many pro-lifers are Christian, but many are not. There are even some <gasp> athiest pro-lifers. It's not about the baby's soul or about what God says. It's about when life begins, and to claim that life begins at any place other than conception is disingenuous.

When we use euphemisms everything can sound nice. Early induction of labor isn't really accurate, because if that's all that happened these babies would simply be preemies. Someone has to do something to them to ensure that they aren't born alive; thus saline or prostaglandin. Read about or watch a partial-birth abortion procedure and other late-term abortion procedures. When you do, euphemisms fly out the window.

You can call it a vicious story but I've read it in feminist literature. So it's not a rumor. Lovely eugenist that she was. I certainly wouldn't want to claim a racist who wanted to wipe out the "unfit" of the society, including blacks. AMEN!!!

I will happily take any of those babies. From http://www.jeremiahproject.com/culture/partbirthabortion.html: The late Dr. James McMahon, who performed abortions on all of the women who Bill Clinton paraded before the public when he vetoed the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban testified that only 9% of the 2,000 partial-birth abortions he performed involved "maternal health" [the most common being "depression"]. Another 56% were for "fetal flaws," ranging from trivial to grave; the most common being Down Syndrome. Over one-third involved neither fetal nor maternal indications, however trivial - in other words, "elective". Dr. Martin Haskell, who has performed over 1,000 partial-birth abortions, said that he performs them "routinely" for non-medical reasons, and that 80% are "purely elective." Medical experts testified before congressional committees that it is never necessary to kill a baby that has been almost entirely delivered to preserve the life or health of the mother. The American Medical Association's board of trustees released a report in May 1997, saying there are no situations in which "intact dilation and extraction [known as partial-birth abortion] is the only appropriate procedure to induce abortion." ... "Lied through my teeth" In Feb. 1997, Ron Fitzsimmons, a leader of the pro-abortion movement and Executive Director of America's National Coalition of Abortion Providers, admitted he had "lied through my teeth" in the ABC "Nightline" program in November 1995 about both the number of and the main reason for partial birth abortions. He now says there are far more partial birth abortions performed than was previously acknowledged, and on healthy women bearing healthy fetuses. It was Fitzsimmons' statistics which claimed only about 500 such abortions, which were cited by President Clinton when he vetoed the ban on partial birth abortions.

Oh, only 3,000 to 4,000 per year. No big deal at all -- to you, maybe. I'll take it as a victory for those several thousand babies. As to only when the life of the mother is in jeopardy, that's a bunch of bunk. From the lips of a former abortionist (link to article: http://www.lifenews.com/nat3042.html): Dr. Anthony Levatino, a Las Cruces, New Mexico OBGYN who formerly did abortions in New York, says a partial-birth abortion is a three day long process and would never be a medical procedure a doctor would need to use to protect a woman's health. "The way you end a pregnancy to save a woman's life is to deliver the (baby)," Levatino said. "If you wait three days to do a partial birth abortion, she's going to end up in the morgue." Levatino said the health exception abortion advocates want is a "legal tactic" that has no basis in medical fact. The three days he's discussing are the three days it takes to dilate the cervix and get the procedure going.

It has nothing to do with Christianity. It has to do with basic human rights.

It'll probably stop this particular procedure, which was developed because it ensured the baby's death in the abortion. In other late-term abortion procedures (still legal up until the day of birth), there was always the possibility the baby would be born alive. Stabbing the baby at the base of the skull and sucking out the baby's brains pretty much ended that possibility. It will not, however, end late-term abortions altogether. Prostaglandin and saline abortions, which chemically burn the baby to death (and whose major complication is "live birth"), will still continue.

I hate to burst your bubble, but there are people who ARE in favor of abortion. There are some hard-core feminists (forgetting of course that the very first feminists were pro-life) who consider abortion a "right of passage" and have even advocated women who haven't had one getting pregnant on purpose so they can experience abortion.

I was once registered Libertarian (not now so I can vote in the primaries) so I agree with you on personal issues. But this one's different because the baby's involved. I think it's gut-wrenching because it's wrong and despite trying to make it an issue of personal freedom, women at the gut level know it's more than that.

LOL! Does it hurt THAT much to agree with me??? <jk> It is truly barbaric and incredibly violent. But I guess if you're a doctor who kills babies for a living, you'd have to be pretty calloused to life.

I had two c's, both bikini cut. I don't think your incisions would make a difference.

Jill, I'm so sorry about your 2YO (I didn't see your earlier posts but I will pray now). It's normal to feel depressed and unmotivated when something like that happens. But remember Phil 4:13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. We homeschool too, so I know how it is to just want to snuggle with your kids and play all day. Sometimes you need to take time to do just that, for a season. Just lean on Him and He will give you the strength. Remember the disciples -- before Jesus' death they were wimps but afterwards they had courage because they experienced His Resurrection and knew the One they were serving. One step at a time. You will be in my prayers.

Happy birthday, TOM :-) For those of you who are interested, the weekend's sermon at our church is available for listening online. It's about the proof for the Resurrection. Go to www.rockharbor.org and look in the top right corner. Enjoy!

:clap2::clap2::clap2: All the pro-lifers I know have no problem with non-embryonic stem cell research.

OHHHHHHH we agree on something! Someone pop open the champagne and mark your calendars!!!!

Thanks, gailannr. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I'm running out of steam here. I'm leaving on a long vacation in a few days and I don't have time to sit at my computer and look up other peoples' theories any longer <grin>

Actually, his discussion of AIDS in Africa is quite compelling. In Africa, to get a diagnosis of AIDS, none of the opportunistic diseases has to be present, no HIV test has to be conducted, and no T-cells are counted. The symptoms to diagnose AIDS in Africa are thus: 1) weight loss of 10% or more, 2) weakness or lack of energy, 3) prolonged diarrhea, and 4) fever (prolonged or intermittent). In addition, one minor symptom (persistent cough, chronic herpes infection, swollen glands) has to be present. I don't know about you, but I can think of quite a number of diseases that correspond with those symptoms. Do I believe AIDS is not a serious issue? OF COURSE NOT!!! But do I take at face value a diagnosis that doesn't require any blood tests and by vague criteria gives millions of Africans AIDS overnight? Again, of course not.

Oops -- same difference! I actually do equate the two in my mind to a degree. Nature is good, man is evil, worship nature. Speaking of which -- if evolutionists believe that we all evolved from primordial Soup and adapted to our environment, isn't man the pinnacle of that evolution and shouldn't what we do to trash said environment be just fine? Those species that are up to par will survive; those that aren't will be the victims of natural selection.

LOL! You guys are the kings of non sequitur. I didn't use the story to justify my position on global warming, but rather to cite an example of how the manic behavior of evolutionists can get out of control and cause more damage than the original thing they were trying to prevent.

Do you take this position with other issues? No one knows for sure if the unborn baby is a baby, so let's take the conservative position and disallow abortion just in case? I doubt it. I think you've misunderstood what I'm saying. I am not in favor of trashing the environment. What I have a problem with is "the sky is falling" doomsday scientists who are blowing everything out of proportion. I do not believe it is our right or our purvue to "trash the planet". I do believe we should make efforts to preserve what's around us. A few years ago in CA we had huge, raging, out-of-control fires that quickly spread because environmentalists wouldn't let anyone cut down trees because of a protected beetle (even though the trees were all dead because of said beetle). Now trees, beetles, and homes are gone. What idiocy. We need to put on our common-sense caps, because there isn't much common sense going on right now.

Wikipedia knows not of what it speaks (probably because it's editable by the general public). Bethell doesn't deny AIDS. Instead of reading ABOUT what they say from a publicly-editable source, why not read WHAT they say?