who supports right to choose

[gadgetlady 4]

If the study is in such a controlled situation, i.e., clinics where they do not counsel that abortion is a reasonable option to an unwanted pregnancy, that couldn't possibly tell the whole story for the majority or 90% of the entire population who faces an unwanted pregnancy.

I have no doubt that your numbers are correct gadget, for that facility.

It's not one facility. It's many facilities, spread all across the nation. And women coming in for free pregnancy testing don't always know or care that they don't provide abortions. This is the first step in their journey -- confirming the pregnancy. I've worked in one of these clinics and the incoming population is NOT pro-life.

Of course you can't get numbers for 100% of the population if 100% of the population isn't shown the ultrasound. I don't know how else you would arrive at numbers showing whether ultrasounds change minds than discussing those who have actually had the ultrasounds.

I know when I'm outnumbered and when it is wiser to just shut up. (I know you didn't tell me specifically to shut up in those words, but I got the point.)

I neither told you nor wanted you to shut up. When I was outnumbered here (as I have been many times on this thread), I never felt the need to stop presenting opinion and facts. But of course it's your decision if you feel outnumbered. Catch you on another thread!

[BJean 16]

I must not have expressed myself well. I spoke to the numbers for those women known to have full knowledge of what the development of the fetus looks like.

And I am not surprised that the women coming into the facilities, whose studies you mentioned, had no idea that the facility doesn't provide abortions. I am familiar with yellow pages ads all over the country where clinics entice women to come to their facility for pregnancy tests and "counseling" - which counseling turns out to be not just pregnancy tests and sometimes ultrasounds, but a thorough bombardment, endoctrination if you will, of anti-abortion propaganda. The places where you work(ed) may not be anti-abortion clinics, but there are many out there that actually disguise themselves as unbiased counselors, when in fact, they are anything but unbiased.

That's why I question the broad generalization of the numbers - not the numbers of the facilities' studies you cite (as I said, I believe you know those numbers) - but for the numbers of ALL women who have peculiar knowledge of fetal development, which you inferred with your statement that 90% of, never get abortions.

Yep, I just wanted to clear that up. I'll catch up with you on the anti-Bush site. (THAT'S A JOKE! :biggrin2: ) Stick a fork in me...

[gadgetlady 4]

I must not have expressed myself well. I spoke to the numbers for those women known to have full knowledge of what the development of the fetus looks like.

People are WOEFULLY ignorant about fetal development, as is evidenced by many on this thread who have posted with grand ignorance about the subject. Most mothers are quite surprised to learn that the unborn baby has a beating heart often before they even know they're pregnant.

And I am not surprised that the women coming into the facilities, whose studies you mentioned, had no idea that the facility doesn't provide abortions. I am familiar with yellow pages ads all over the country where clinics entice women to come to their facility for pregnancy tests and "counseling" - which counseling turns out to be not just pregnancy tests and sometimes ultrasounds, but a thorough bombardment, endoctrination if you will, of anti-abortion propaganda. The places where you work(ed) may not be anti-abortion clinics, but there are many out there that actually disguise themselves as unbiased counselors, when in fact, they are anything but unbiased.

As if abortion clinics didn't have a bias? They don't make any money if the mothers coming in there don't abort. Abortion clinics are a profit-making entity and, as such, have an interest in providing as little information on the development of the unborn baby as possible. They are funded, not only by the procedures they perform, but also by our tax dollars.

Pro-life clinics, on the other hand, are funded primarily by volunteers and donations; when I last volunteered in one, they were wholly funded this way. Since then, they are now receiving minimal federal assistance. Their goal is to comfort, provide information and, yes, to try to stop as many mothers as possible from ending the lives of their children. The number of dedicated personnel working in the thousands of these largely volunteer-run centers is staggering. They do not lie to mothers or try to shield the truth (and the ultrasound machine!) as abortion clinics do. While you may disagree with their goals, you certainly can't disagree with the facts they present.

[BJean 16]

Pull the fork out, I guess I'm not done.

Why do you think that the government does not support anti-abortion clinics? Why do you think that they have to be funded and run by private sources?

Why do you think that Planned Parenthood is supported by tax dollars? It is because they offer UNBIASED information. They do not discriminate and make choices for women. Anti-abortion clinics DO make choices for women by ennundating them with extremely biased information - including graphic, ugly and extreme audio and visual means. They aren't just informing women about what a developing fetus looks like or that a heart beat can been detected very early in a pregnancy. They are preying on the often very fragile emotional state of women in trouble.

As I said before, I have no argument with you or those individuals who make this their life work - to convince women to have unwanted children instead of aborting them. I do believe that it is within your rights to do it and if you save some lives in the process, that is great and wonderful! I really admire you for committing yourself and your time to such a worthwhile cause.

However I believe that abortion is a relatively simple procedure, particularly if done very early in the pregnancy. It is not the wholly horrific experience that some people portray it to be. It absolutely does not always result in women being emotionally traumatized later by having had an abortion. It too, can save lives - those of women who absolutely have no intention or desire to bring an unwanted child into the world.

But my real argument on this thread is not about any of the above. It is about CHOICE. Women should never be forced, by our laws, i.e., by extremely biased people, to have babies. Our government should not be in the business of controlling women's bodies in that way - not ever!

Please go about your business of saving lives anyway you wish, but if you persist in trying to change the law so that all women are banned from making their own reproductive choices when faced with unwanted pregnancies, then I'm gonna fight you.

I'm going to fight you tooth and nail. I won't play your game of dragging out photos of bloody bathtubs of women who have died trying to abort their babies themselves, or of women who hung themselves in their bedroom because they were faced with no other option when abortion was illegal. Nor will I sit in a tree and level my rifle on the people who work in anti-abortion clinics. But short of that, I will fight you.

[gadgetlady 4]

Why do you think that the government does not support anti-abortion clinics? Why do you think that they have to be funded and run by private sources?

As I said, they are now minimally funded.

Why do you think that Planned Parenthood is supported by tax dollars? It is because they offer UNBIASED information.

Baloney. It's because of good lobbying and a lot of deception.

From http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=86825:

Victor Gonzalez, former vice-president for finance and administration of Planned Parenthood-Los Angeles secretly filed the suit in 2005 in a U.S. District Court in Los Angeles under the federal False Claims Act. The suit was unsealed earlier this week following a review by the U.S. attorney’s office.

Gonzalez, who worked for Planned Parenthood from December of 2002 until March of 2004, alleges he was fired for bringing “illegal accounting, billing and donations practices” to the attention of his superiors. The lawsuit alleges that Planned Parenthood’s irregular billing practices began in the late 1990s and continued until 2004, when the organization persuaded the state legislature to change the law, allowing it to bill the higher rates.

“The complaint documents what we believe is evidence of extensive, organized fraud by Planned Parenthood in California,” Jack Schuler, Gonzalez’s attorney, told the California Catholic Daily.

Schuler elaborated saying that “A previously buried and ignored California Department of Health Services 2004 Audit, which found more than $5 million in egregious over-billing in two years by the San Diego/Riverside Planned Parenthood affiliate, is an extraordinary indictment against Planned Parenthood.” He characterized the case as “the ultimate Hollywood movie set façade of a corporation that poses as charitable while grossly over-billing government programs funded to service the needy, not the greedy.” “I would not be shocked that criminal prosecutions might follow,” he added.

And from Lawsuit alleges overbilling by Planned Parenthood - Los Angeles Times

A 2004 state audit of Planned Parenthood of San Diego and Riverside Counties — one of nine affiliates statewide — lends some support to Gonzalez’s allegations. The report identified more than $5.2 million in overbillings just during the 2003 fiscal year.

Questions about Planned Parenthood’s billing practices were raised as early as 1997 by a state Medi-Cal official, according to letters provided to The Times by Gonzalez’s attorney. In October 1997 and January 1998, the official told Kathy Kneer, the organization’s California chief executive, her affiliates were billing for oral contraceptives incorrectly.

State health officials now say, however, that they do not believe Planned Parenthood acted improperly because the organization was given contradictory guidance on billing from the state.

In fact, after Planned Parenthood complained that a lower reimbursement rate could imperil its survival, the state passed a law in 2004 allowing it to continue billing as it had been all along.

Former state Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson of Santa Barbara said she sponsored the legislation to remedy the problem. “I was told and persuaded that if Planned Parenthood had to reformulate the charges . . . that they wouldn’t be able to continue providing the service, that they would be losing money,” she said. “It was a question of access, absolutely.”

I attended an affluent college in the 1980's. Right down the street was a Planned Parenthood. If one of the college students went in for services, they didn't have to pay. How did these women who came from extremely affluent families get free abortions, paid for by you and me? They were told by the clinic workers that even though they had health care through their parents, even though they were supported 100% by their parents through tuition, expenses, etc. at college (to the point where they didn't need part-time jobs to support themselves through school), they could just sign an affidavit that they were unemployed and therefore indigent. So here was this Planned Parenthood in a wealthy neighborhood servicing wealthy, privileged young women, encouraging these women to lie and claim to be indigent so they could receive "free" services (paid for by our tax dollars). Fraud and deception at work.

Anti-abortion clinics DO make choices for women by ennundating them with extremely biased information - including graphic, ugly and extreme audio and visual means. They aren't just informing women about what a developing fetus looks like or that a heart beat can been detected very early in a pregnancy.

You're just plain wrong. There are some places you will find graphic visual descriptions of abortions, but they generally don't take place in pregnancy counseling centers. Pro-life organizations use different tools at different times (just as pro-abortion groups do). In counseling situations, they just plain don't do this. Regardless, pictures and videos of what happens in abortion are quite simply not a lie.

They are preying on the often very fragile emotional state of women in trouble.

Isn't that an interesting turn of events. The ones who are preying are the abortion clinics: "kill your child and everything will be OK."

However I believe that abortion is a relatively simple procedure, particularly if done very early in the pregnancy.

It doesn't matter how simple it is. The point is it kills someone. Lethal injection is pretty simple too; that doesn't make it right. So is shooting someone in the head, I guess.

It is not the wholly horrific experience that some people portray it to be.

It's always horrific for the baby.

I won't play your game of dragging out photos of bloody bathtubs of women who have died trying to abort their babies themselves, or of women who hung themselves in their bedroom because they were faced with no other option when abortion was illegal.

You know, we CAN love them both -- the mother and the baby. We can work to save BOTH lives. We can stop lying to women and telling them that to be successful and productive members of society, they have to kill their offspring. We can stop judging women who become pregnant out of wedlock. We can support women who are facing financial and emotional hardship from being unexpectedly pregnant. We CAN do better than we do now.

Nor will I sit in a tree and level my rifle on the people who work in anti-abortion clinics.

Yeah, cuz that's how I spend my weekends.

As I said before, I have no argument with you or those individuals who make this their life work - to convince women to have unwanted children instead of aborting them. I do believe that it is within your rights to do it and if you save some lives in the process (emphasis added)

Please go about your business of saving lives anyway you wish, (emphasis added)

If convincing a pregnant woman not to abort her child is saving a life, isn't the converse true: that allowing a pregnant woman to abort is taking a life? Thank you for acknowledging that point. That's what this discussion is all about, after all. I don't care what people do with their own bodies. I only care when what they "choose" to do impedes on the life or liberty of another person.

[BJean 16]

I am not surprised in the least that there are people who will do anything and everything in their power to shut down Planned Parenthood.

And by the way, a good friend of mine in Florida volunteered in a clinic that advertised that they were there to counsel and assist women with unwanted pregnancies. They absolutely did subject women who came to their clinic to all kinds of horrible, bloody visuals and very determined individuals whose job it was to make sure that each and every woman who came into their facility would leave so traumatized that they would not consider abortion as an option. That particular kind of "counseling" was my friend's job and she took it very seriously.

Also, I never said that aborting a fetus wasn't killing a baby. It's just too bad that there are so many people who believe that the life of an undeveloped fetus trumps that of a woman. Furthermore because they've taken it upon themselves to speak for that fetus, they believe it is within their rights to take control of a woman and effectively exert control of her for the rest of her life. Because having a child that you do not want does not necessarily mean that you are willing to give it to someone else to raise.

Even if a woman did choose to give up an unwanted child for adoption, her life will forever be changed and affected by the birth of that child. And what about the child? You personally seem to work toward helping those children who are unwanted yet brought into this world. But many, many people who are against abortion are certainly not willing to be responsible for someone else's child for the rest of their life. And they certainly don't want to assist the woman, who has been impregnated against her wishes, either economically or emotionally.

Yes, there are lots of avenues our society could take and needs to take, to help women in trouble, as you said. But society cannot cause a woman's life to go unchanged or the baby to be unharmed by forcing a woman to have a child.

Americans need to get over the idea that they can be the conscience and controller of women. They cannot affectively do that by making abortion illegal. They cannot do that, period.

[gadgetlady 4]

I am not surprised in the least that there are people who will do anything and everything in their power to shut down Planned Parenthood.

Of course, no comment that they defrauded the State of California of over $5,200,000 in two years.

And by the way, a good friend of mine in Florida volunteered in a clinic that advertised that they were there to counsel and assist women with unwanted pregnancies. They absolutely did subject women who came to their clinic to all kinds of horrible, bloody visuals and very determined individuals whose job it was to make sure that each and every woman who came into their facility would leave so traumatized that they would not consider abortion as an option. That particular kind of "counseling" was my friend's job and she took it very seriously.

Well, I've never seen anything like that happen in all my years in pro-life, and I guess my answer would be I don't consider that very effective counseling. But still, it's not lying. When I had my lap-band installed, I did so with full knowledge of what was happening. No avenues were spared to inform me of exactly what was going to happen. Why is abortion any different? Why shouldn't mothers know what happens in the "procedure"?

Also, I never said that aborting a fetus wasn't killing a baby.

Wow! That's the first time I've heard you say that -- maybe I'm forgetting, but I really think it is. So you acknowledge now that abortion is the deliberate taking of a human life?

It's just too bad that there are so many people who believe that the life of an undeveloped fetus trumps that of a woman.

One life should never "trump" another to the point that the other life is extinguished. Both lives can coexist and no one needs to be killed. A mother doesn't die by carrying a baby to term.

Even if a woman did choose to give up an unwanted child for adoption, her life will forever be changed and affected by the birth of that child.

A mother's life is forever changed when she kills her baby, too. Not to speak, of course, of how the life of the baby is changed!

And what about the child? You personally seem to work toward helping those children who are unwanted yet brought into this world. But many, many people who are against abortion are certainly not willing to be responsible for someone else's child for the rest of their life. And they certainly don't want to assist the woman, who has been impregnated against her wishes, either economically or emotionally.

Find me any quantity of mothers who need assistance in either placing their babies with adoptive families, getting counseling or economic assistance, and I will find that help for them. I guarantee it. The resources are voluminous and often untapped.

Americans need to get over the idea that they can be the conscience and controller of women.

The deliberate killing of human beings is not a matter of conscience. It is unconscionable.

[BJean 16]

Of course women should be informed and knowledgable of every aspect of every choice that they make. They do not need to view mutilations and blood and guts in graphic and grisley photos in order to be informed and make an informed decision. You call it truth, I call it propaganda.

Your memory notwithstanding, I have never been the one who has denied that a fertilized egg is life. I do argue that it is not a complete human being yet. But that is totally immaterial to the relevant debate.

Be it a matter of conscience or unconscionable behavior, government/society has no right to impose their values or moralilty or religious fervor, regarding decisions about an an implanted sperm, into the uteruses of women. Once the bun is out of the oven, then they can get all het up about how it's treated by its' mother.

[BJean 16]

P.S. There is some debate about how culpable Planned Parenthood is regarding their "overcharging".

Once the lawsuit has been decided, if they are shown to knowingly and with intent to have defrauded the government, then you can yell it to the rooftops. A lawsuit or accusation does not merit treating it as fact.

[gadgetlady 4]

Of course women should be informed and knowledgable of every aspect of every choice that they make. They do not need to view mutilations and blood and guts in graphic and grisley photos in order to be informed and make an informed decision.

What, then, do you propose telling them abortion is? And what the unborn baby is?

I do argue that it is not a complete human being yet.

Neither is a newborn, a toddler, or an adolescent. Heck, NONE of us is complete! I've got a lot of growing left to do in my life.

Be it a matter of conscience or unconscionable behavior, government/society has no right to impose their values or moralilty or religious fervor

Government and society have a right to protect innocent life. They have a right to interfere whenever one person is contemplating killing another.

[BJean 16]

Okay here we are - back to the same spot where we just have to agree to disagree. Neither of us will budge on what we believe is right and we both feel that our argument is not only correct, but supports the proper legal course for our government to take. As far as I'm concerned, for this go 'round, 'nuff said!

[MrsFlipFlops 2]

Here's my problem with our little arguments... we're going to go round in circles... one person saying I had this experience and vice versa. Suffice it to say there are good people and bad people on BOTH sides of this argument. We could argue all day about when life begins, and the traumatization or what not.

I don't like to get caught up in the mumbo jumbo about what happens at a pro life vs pro choice or whatever tactics they use. Do I care, yes. But I don't think it's relevant to the argument.

First let me say, I've really enjoyed reading this thread. I think it's given me a lot to think about that perhaps I hadn't pondered before. And BJean, I really (and I'm not being sarcastic here- I know it's hard to tell online) have appreciated you taking the time to post, even when it seems you're outnumbered.

But on to my thought... I think the most important argument for being pro life that I can say is, and this has been my problem with your arguments BJean, the whole time... you've been saying woman should be given choices, no one should tell them what to do... (in a nutshell) Women DO have a choice. Like my mom always says, women have a choice before they jump into bed with a guy! If you're not ready for the consequences of the action, despite using birth control, you should be prepared for the consequences. As a teenager, sure, I wanted to have sex. I knew birth control was available, but there is no birth control that is 100% effective and I, being the bright eyed, college bound child that I was, could simply not take that chance. It's not like sex is being FORCED on these people, women can say no! Sex isn't a life necessity, like Water or air. They don't HAVE to have it.

However, in the cases of child abuse or rape, etc... these were not chosen actions. In these cases, I agree that abortion could be considered. Not encouraged or opposed for the matter, but the option should be available. And after thoughtful consideration, a decision could be made.

And what about men? Just because a woman is carrying the child, doesn't give them the right to make the choice a hundred percent. If I give you my wallet, you don't have the right to throw it away! Sure, some men, don't care... it's a "woman's" issue. I beg to differ, it's a societal issue.

And another thing, just because something is backed by the government doesn't make it right- it just makes it legal. Having personally worked as an investigator of child abuse allegations, I can tell you a lot of programs (ones that even oppose eachother) are backed by the government. The government is run by people, just like you and me. Just because a bank has FDIC stamped on it's building, doesn't mean it's practices are perfect.

That's all for now. I really hope I didn't offend anyone, I've just had these thoughts while posting. I have appreciated the opportunity to ponder and read these things. So thanks everyone!

[luluc 6]

BJean, I thought you were headed to the Anti-Bush Thread??? :wink2: I'm behind you here, I'm for the right to have an opion - More for the Right to Choose.

Enjoyed the long banter of discussion - wont' ever change my mind, but the debate and this thread lives on~~

[tink128 0]

GadgetLady, you and I agree wholeheartedly on this issue. I just want to say that BJean if you want abortions to be legal then you pay for them via your tax dollars but I dont agree with my tax money going to fund a Planned Parenthood.

[jwgr 0]

"until i walk trough the shoe's of a killer" well I don't need to walk in the shoes of anyone to know that it is a desision that should not be made. But if it is made, cause we all make mistakes. then there should be some law that would make it not as easy to get and make you not want to get one!

Sorry to tell you but it is not your place to decide or judge anyone for anything!!!You only have to answer for yourself. Unless you are living some perfect life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!