who supports right to choose

[pattygreen 5]

I just want to say something about that magazine article on abortion that says that 70% of people who have abortions were christians. There are many christian denominations in this country, and there are many in those denominations that are christians, but in name only. (not all, but many). I can't tell you how many times before I became a christian that I told people who asked me that I was a christian, because I had called the local catholic church mine. I never attended the church. I never accepted that Jesus was my Savior. I really wasn't a christian, but when questioned, (or polled) said that I was. (because my parents said they were) When people have to choose a faith on a survey, or questioneer, they think for a second about what they believe and then say 'christian'. So, I don't think that 70% is as true as it says it is. If anyone were truely christian, they would have the spiritual understanding that abortion is not acceptable in God's eyes and be prolife.

[pattygreen 5]

Again that your opinion , the difference between you and me is I do not think MY Opinion is the ONLY Opinion and therefore EVERYONE should think as I do . If you feel that way you feel that way . I respect that. I do not however think that everyone should or does feel the way I do .

Im done .

I only state my belief. I do not believe my opinion is the only opinion. You are giving me yours right now, so obviously I don't think mine is the only opinion. I do not believe everyone should think as I do. But I do believe that everyone should seek for themselves to see what God's opinion is. Please don't take my word about what God has to say on abortion. Read it for yourself.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

BJean: Thank you.

[pattygreen 5]

The question is no longer "Are you pro-life or pro-choice". The relevant question is "Do you want to criminalize abortion?"

I want to STOP abortions. If we could have laws that make them illegal, that would be great. If women break that law, then yes, they should be prosecuted. I don't see that happening though. We have come to a place in time where man calls what is wrong, right and what is right, wrong.

If you answer yes, then you have to be willing to:

-put women who get abortions & the doctors who perform them in jail.

-pay increased taxes for more jails, childcare for these children, welfare for their single moms, healthcare for these children and much more.

-support all forms of birth control, including the morning after pill (which is not an abortefacient).

-be willing to "man up" and adopt these children who you force women to have even when they are multiracial, crack babies or disabled or again pay more taxes for these children to become part of "the system".

If abortions were made to be against the law, then they would be illegal. And whatever the people have to do to uphold that law would have to be done.(like the things you listed above) We don't have a problem enforcing drug laws, because drugs harm people. We put drug dealers in jail, pay more taxes for them, help addicted children recover, pay for their healthcare with state med. ins., etc. So we will do it for unwanted babies, It beats killing them.

Until you are willing to do those things (among others) a "pro-life" stance is not honest and you bring nothing to the table in this debate.

I believe all prolifers would agree to criminalize abortion and do everything that we can to stop it, just like we would do everything we can to stop any criminal act. My prolife stance is very honest.

[pattygreen 5]

If you do not believe in abortion it is within your rights as an American to not have an abortion. No laws says that if you have a retarded or handicapped fetus that you must abort it.

I thank God for that. Because I would never kill another human being even if I were allowed to by the sometimes stupid laws Americans put into place.

My point is that you must live with the fact that if an American woman choose to abort a fetus, it is within her rights to do so.

I know. This is what is so sad. Even though it is soooo wrong, there isn't anything any prolifer can do to stop the killings.

Even if you were able to change the law back to the time when abortion was illegal, women will still make the choice to abort if they need to. And there will always be compassionate doctors willing to go to jail to help women who are in need of that kind of medical care.

I know that, but their numbers would be far, far less.

It makes no sense whatsoever to take away a woman's legal right to choose. There are always circumstances where it is medically or emotionally necessary for women to abort. That is a fact that you can't argue with although I know you will.

This is where we disagree.I believe it make perfect sense not to kill others. The ONLY time I feel that abortion is necessary is.. When the life of the mother is in grave danger if she continues to carry. And even then, I believe I would trust God to get me through it (but that's just me).

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Pattygreen: You don't mention your stance on birth control. It is hypocritical to be opposed to both birth control and abortion. You can't have it both ways. Also, how many bi-racial, crack babies would you be willing to adopt so that they wouldn't become wards of the state? When you say "we help addicted chidren recover" exactly who is we? The system? We all know how dysfunctional child service protection agencies are - woefully understaffed and underfunded. If you personally campaign to change the current law of legal abortion to illegal - then you have to personally take responsibility for what will result. Adopt the unwanted babies. How many of the pro-lifers are willing to do that? Are you? Because with pro-lifers it's all about the babies before they're born -but what about after? Because it's not up to the system to care for them when there are too many unwanted babies even now when abortion is legal. And I doubt many people (regardless of their stance) would agree to a large increase in taxes (because our costs to run prisons now are astronomical and a huge burden on state budgets) and the costs in our court systems in terms of money and workload to prosecute all these people would be almost prohibitive.

[pattygreen 5]

Pattygreen: You don't mention your stance on birth control.

I don't have any problem with birth contol as long as it doesn't kill the baby. For there are a few contraceptions that kill the fertilized egg and wash it out of the mother. (abstinance, rubbers, vasectomys, tied tubes, anything that doesn't kill the fertilized egg)

It is hypocritical to be opposed to both birth control and abortion. You can't have it both ways. Also, how many bi-racial, crack babies would you be willing to adopt so that they wouldn't become wards of the state?

I've already done that. How many can you help?

When you say "we help addicted chidren recover" exactly who is we?

'We" are the same people who help drug addicts and alcoholics and abused children, and domestic violence victims, etc. ' We' are the people in this nation who support programs thru our tax dollars and charitys. "We" are the same people who put the unwanted or abused babies up for adoption right now with your tax dollars. Beside, if there was a law that forbid abortion, people would be much more careful to use birth control or to abstain from sex that could lead to pregnancy. Think about it. If you knew that if you got pregnant you would be having a child, period, you wouldn't be so careless about birth control. This country has made it too easy to get rid of 'the problem' By not allowing crimes like abortion to be just that, a crime, we have made it 'like nothing' in the eyes of humans. Way back when, when they used to hang people publicly for robbery. there were VERY, VERY few robberys committed, because people actually witnessed the consequences for their crimes and didn't want to get into that situation.

The system? We all know how dysfunctional child service protection agencies are - woefully understaffed and underfunded. If you personally campaign to change the current law of legal abortion to illegal - then you have to personally take responsibility for what will result.

Why? We give sooooo much of our tax dollars in this country to the most ridiculous causes, but to use some of that money to help innocent unwanted babies would be so horrible to you. So horrible, that you would rather say "just abort them. I don't want to fund them."?

Adopt the unwanted babies. How many of the pro-lifers are willing to do that? Are you? Because with pro-lifers it's all about the babies before they're born -but what about after? Because it's not up to the system to care for them when there are too many unwanted babies even now when abortion is legal. And I doubt many people (regardless of their stance) would agree to a large increase in taxes (because our costs to run prisons now are astronomical and a huge burden on state budgets) and the costs in our court systems in terms of money and workload to prosecute all these people would be almost prohibitive.

How can you put a price on human life? Good thing it isn't your life we are talking about here.

[Carrie_C 9]

I am prochoice, but I have to say something. My younger brother was an unwanted, biracial crack baby. My mother and stepfather adopted him when he was 3 months old. It was very hard to take care of him because he was going through withdrawals from the crack. He is almost 13 now, and he is turning into a fine young man and I am very proud of him. Even though he was unwanted, I am glad that he wasn't aborted. That being said, there aren't many people like my mother who are willing to take care of a child like that.

[gadgetlady 4]

I am not sure how far along Elizabeth was during that time. Since she could feel him moving around, I would say she was pretty far along. Yes, God did have a plan for his life before he was born. But that is a totally diffent situation. That has nothing to do with the issue at hand. This is not Biblical times.

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.

As far as when a human becomes a human, I do not know.

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.

[gadgetlady 4]

Again that your opinion , the difference between you and me is I do not think MY Opinion is the ONLY Opinion and therefore EVERYONE should think as I do . If you feel that way you feel that way . I respect that. I do not however think that everyone should or does feel the way I do .

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?

[Carrie_C 9]

gadget, how many times are you going to bring up the issue of slavery in this discussion???

[gadgetlady 4]

I am prochoice, but I have to say something. My younger brother was an unwanted, biracial crack baby. My mother and stepfather adopted him when he was 3 months old. It was very hard to take care of him because he was going through withdrawals from the crack. He is almost 13 now, and he is turning into a fine young man and I am very proud of him. Even though he was unwanted, I am glad that he wasn't aborted. That being said, there aren't many people like my mother who are willing to take care of a child like that.

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.

[gadgetlady 4]

So your saying a 3 month old fetus is "Independent" therefore does not need the mother to survive ?

The child is NOT just as independent 6 months before birth as it is 6 months after birth .

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?

[gadgetlady 4]

gadget, how many times are you going to bring up the issue of slavery in this discussion???

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?

[Carrie_C 9]

I never said babies weren't fully human. In a perfect world, women would not need to have an abortion. However, this is not a perfect world.