<p>“As for pro-life v. pro-choice: pro-life people do not see what they are doing as political so much as a basic requirement of civilised society; pro-choicers (regardless of whether or not they would have an abortion) see the debate as one of sexual politics.”</p>
<p>Exactly.</p>
<p>On the national level, pro-life Democrats are a rarity… as the NARAL position on abortion seems to be the Democrat’s raison d’etre. Just look at the recent Supreme Court nominations; the fact that fealty to Roe is a litmus test for judgeships; Emily’s List; even the Pregnant Woman’s Support Act aims not at the moral issue of abortion, but rather a “big government” solution*. Pro-life Democrats on teh state level are usually in conservative (or “purple” at best) states, who know that they can’t win on a pro-choice platform. Pennsylvania is a pretty strong “life” state - I believe the Casey decision came out of there. Outside of Philly and the NJ border, there’s strong pockets of conservatism. </p>
<p>(It’s the flipside of the fact that Mitt Romney ran in Massachusetts on a moderately pro-choice platform. No other way to win. Doesn’t mean that the national party likes it one bit.)</p>
<p>*Not that I’m against actually supporting pregnant women as a means to reducing abortion, considering that many women consider it for financial or social reasons. I do think that it will be a case of unintendend consequences (such as radically driving up health insurance premiums for women - my health insurance would have been roughly 50% higher witih a pregnancy rider); mostly, though, I think it’s very telling that such a strong Democrats for Life bill does not in any way undermine abortion access… and, to those who are strongly pro-life, punts on the moral issue.</p>
<p>
HH, I’m sorry, but you just make it so obvious. </p>
<p>“when they knew he was gay” - NO.</p>
<p>"when they knew he “maybe liked young men” - YES!</p>
<p>Your (Republican) insistance that the fact that a man is gay suggests that he is more likely to be a molester than if he was straight is precisely the kind of thing that tends to demonstrate what we refer to as “homophobia”.</p>
<p>The great majority of child molesters are “straight” men. The do the vast majority of the molesting of girls, and a great part - possibly also the majority - of molesting of boys. So the “he was gay” part of your post is the injection of an irrelevancy into the equation which can best be explained by – homophobia. The fact that you continue to insist that this is a homosexual issue rather than a child protection issue also is a manifestation of that.</p>
<p>“Of course everyone is welcome under the Democrats’ big tent” … just as long as they don’t speak at the Democratic Convention - just ask Bob Casey.</p>
<p>I can’t catch up on all bazillion posts I missed today, but seeing that we have devolved into talking about the pro-life stance of the “civilized society”, I challenge those of you who herald killing thousands and thousands of innocents in Iraq, or even those of you who herald the death penalty, to explain your “pro-life” stance.</p>
<p>This is always puzzling to me.</p>
<p>If life is sacred (I can certainly understand that point of view)…all life…why do you pick and choose? What makes the unborn American child’s life more sacred that the innocent Iraqi mother’s, or her unborn child, caught in the crossfire?</p>
<p>AM, one can ask you the same question: why is the taking of “innocent life” OK when involved with “good” wars like in Afghanistan, the Balkans, WW II, etc. but not in other wars. If you want to take the position that ALL war is bad then please be consistent.</p>
<p>“Ask Joe Lieberman …”</p>
<p>ask what? Joe Lieberman is whinny little boy.</p>
<p>“Not a scandal. Shrug.”</p>
<p>TD, and neither are 99% of the daily “scandals” reported in the Caf</p>
<p>Well, AllMusic, I know some VERY strong anti-abortion people who are also pro death penalty. It is intellectually consistent, although the other side would pretend otherwise.</p>
<p>First of all, most pro-lifers consider abortion to be infanticide. They see no difference between a standard abortion and bashing the brains out of a newborn baby.</p>
<p>Second, you’re making a straw man with “all life is sacred.” That doesn’t mean that you should never, ever let someone die; take someone off life support; or kill a murderer. The stance is that life is sacred; not, “never, ever, ever kill, ever.”</p>
<p>So we come to the question - can you be against infanticide and pro death penalty? Of course. First of all, there’s the issue of innocent life. My little sister was born early. I was appalled when the Catholic Church’s stance was that she should be baptized immediately, otherwise, if she didn’t survive (which was very likely), she would go to Purgatory. To me, that was disguisting - I cannot look at someone so helpless, vulnerable, and young - not even capable of breathing on her own - and see even the ability to do wrong. Infants are, IMO, diametrically opposed to murderers. </p>
<p>The deterrent effect of the death penalty is debatable; but the thing is, once someone is dead, they aren’t going to continue to kill. Many people (very logically) consider it to be a way of preserving innocent human life. You do not allow murderers to continue taking innocent life; you do not allow doctors to take innocent life. The goal that spans both pro-life and pro-death penalty thought is the protection of innocent life and, in many respects, the continuation of a civilised society.</p>
<p>The real question - how can you be against the death penalty but pro-abortion? Isn’t the big anti-death argument, “They could be innocent?” Innocent as, say, someone who was conceived three months ago? </p>
<p>I’ve often said that the fundamental difference between pro-choicers and pro-lifers is who they feel worse for - the mother or the kid. You can feel worse for the kid and not feel sympathy for a murderer.</p>
<p>
Assuming, arguendo, that all pro-lifers are for the war in Iraq, there are still two things:
<p>As for (1), we recognize, philosophically and legally, the difference between intent and collateral damage. It is not the intent of American soldiers to kill Iraqi women and their unborn babies. It is not the intent of the war to commit genocide. It is the intent of abortion to kill the baby. If you’re driving down the road and I trip on the sidewalk, fall out in front of your car, and you hit me, you will not be charged with a crime. If you hit another car to avoid hitting me, you won’t be charged with vandalism. If I’m walking down the sidewalk and you gun the engine, sideswipe three cars as you jump the sidewalk and plow into me, any civilised society will charge you with several crimes. Is that intellectually inconsistent? Is that “picking and choosing?” </p>
<p>(2) Saddam Hussein had mass graves, rape rooms, and kids in prison. No matter what one thinks of the wisdom of going over to Iraq, we can all hope that the war will result in, well, Saddam’s rape rooms being shut down; his crazy son not executing civilians at will; the end of the mass graves. The beginning and end point of abortion is to kill, with the ending of the baby’s life being its own justification. As a practical result, abortion and its legalization only results in more abortion - at 1.5 million abortions per year, it has become a very popular form of birth control. No one can argue that abortion will allow our society to overthrow a murderous dictator. </p>
<p>There is no intellectual inconsistency there. It is really only the pro-choice, anti-death penalty people that have a hard time explaining their stance. IMO, you can be pro-life & anti-death penalty (pro-life, regardless); pro-life and pro-death penalty (protecting innocent life & protecting innocent life from murderers and possible parole or communing of sentences); or pro-choice, pro-death penalty (the screw it all, we’re doing what is practical and efficient).</p>
<p>DRJ4,</p>
<p>“Of course everyone is welcome under the Democrats’ big tent. Ask Joe Lieberman … he knows.”</p>
<p>Wasn’t he voted out? Isn’t that how it’s done? A very weak point you’re trying to make here. Are you not allowed to vote for more than GOP canidate in your state? OR are they elected for life? Maybe that’s the problem for the GOP, once your in, you’re never accountable to your community? That’s a better way? Fidel?</p>
<p>Allmusic, if you can’t see the difference between unintended casualties of war, civilian or military, and the wanton choice of ending the life of a baby in utero, then I don’t know what anyone can say to help you.</p>
<p>I value life. I don’t like fatal traffic accidents, drug overdoses, illnesses, murder or any other untimely end. I’ve said before that I’m even on a ‘catch and release’ program with insects in my house. I avoid hitting the chipmunks that like to play chicken with my car. </p>
<p>I don’t know of anyone who suggests that ending the life of innocent people in Iraq should be a choice, a la abortion. It is, unfortunately, a consequence of war. But I see that as far different from the liberal policies which permit the brutal murder of a baby who could survive if allowed to deliver naturally – i.e. partial birth abortion. How can it be a crime to cause the death of a pregnant woman’s fetus at seven months (see <a href=“http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/atoz/article_1087269.php[/url]”>a – Orange County Register) and yet it is still legal to deliver that child up to its shoulders and then kill it? I’ve yet to hear a logical explanation about how ending the life of a late term fetus can save the mother. Surely, medical technology allows us to try to save both.</p>
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</p>
<p>Allmusic,
To be clear, should I then gather from your serpentine question that Liberals, or Democrats, do not begin questions of life and death, culture, art and politics with the premise that life is sacred?</p>
<p>That would certainly explain a lot resolving not a few of my intractable encounters with the postmodern-liberal; however, I am sad to say, I believe you speak only for your self here, leaving me right back where I started–simply bemused.</p>
<p>By the way, if the Dems want to go ahead and encourage abortion, don’t they realize that this is a negative growth scenario for the party? Most people learn politics in the home – at the rate the Dems are going, that’s going to be fewer and fewer people.</p>
<p>As far as pro choice vs. prolife. </p>
<p>I will support the prolife movement when pro choice means “no choice”. When the government forces abortion upon unwilling people, I’ll fight for a choice. </p>
<p>As long as someone can choose yes or no, I’ll support choice. It is your job as prolifers to help convince someone to say “no”, not to force them by making the choice illegal. Why assume an automatic yes? </p>
<p>What are you afraid of, in allowing a woman the ability to say yes or no? Why does that scare you if your arguement is true? Can’t you be convincing without threat of jail? What opportunities and support do you offer? or is it just make it illegal and throw them in jail? </p>
<p>I have good friends who are prolife, their kids are from mothers who considered their options and because these people stepped up, they went through the pregnancy and their children are with parents that want them (my friends). That was their solution to the choice option, what’s yours?</p>
<p>FountainSiren - it’s a lot easier to determine something to be intellectually inconsistent (or, for that matter, to win any battle) when you get to determine the assumptions and premises. It’s a slam-dunk when you get to draw conclusions from those assumptions.</p>
<p>–
Re: negative growth. Yes, there’s a strong correlation between voting patterns and parental voting patterns. The birth rate for Dems is about 1.4; the birth rate for Repubicans is about 2.1. </p>
<hr>
<p>Opie - way to mischaracterise the position! 
Congrats. </p>
<p>If you are ever puzzled by the pro-life stance, just substitute “10-year-old” for “fetus” and the objection is plain. Do you trust every person in America to not kill elementary school children, to the point that you will not even prosecute it when it happens? If you like the status quo of making it illegal to kill 10-year-old children, are you “scared” that people might make their own choices? For roughly half the country, it is a moral imperative to ensure that killing another human being is not a valid choice, even if that human happens to be quite young. For almost everyone save the psychopaths, it is a moral imperative to ensure that the “choice” of killing humans is illegal and prosecuted.</p>
<p>Again… always easy to “win” an argument, especially in your head, if you get to make up the rules and the assumptions. </p>
<p>I’m not pretending that I can change your minds; your questions are phrased in ways that make it clear that you will ignore the answers as they do not fit within your view of conservatives or the world. I just don’t want other people thinking that they are valid questions without answers.</p>
<p>so sjmom, are you saying people should breed so their party can stay in power, that women should pump out babies like brood mares?</p>
<p>just asking</p>
<p>SJ, who is “encouraging abortion”?</p>
<p>And FS, were you being deliberately obtuse?</p>
<p>i guess I value life that is here- now- living and breathing- and am not so concerned with the afterlife- I do my best to take care of others who are here and do the right thing because it is the right thing, not thinking about where it will take me when I die. so perhaps my motives are less selfish then some who do the right thing because it will lead them to heaven, a fairly selfish motive, imo</p>
<p>
That, madame, was a terrible comparrison–liberal (and fertile) women, with a fertile horse (however, a fertile donkey would also be a “broodmare”, thus perhaps on second thought the comparrison is more apt than credited).</p>